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The Mentalist star takes on gravity and gray areas.

1) Learning to Fly. Kids today don’t get to enjoy childhood as a time they can do anything, because usually “anything” involves jumping off of rooftops because they think they can fly. Even if you break your leg and end up in the emergency room, there’s something special about that moment. Because for just a second, you thought you could fly. My parents always made me feel like I could fly. We never discussed what I couldn’t do. We get the rest of our lives to hear the truth.

2) The Gift of Gab. My parents are both Irish, so I grew up around storytellers. When I was a kid, my mom would tell me, “You can’t walk on that woman’s lawn…because she captures small children and puts them in her basement. And if you look closely at the window, you can see the tiny fingerprints.” As a kid, it terrifies and delights you. Then you’re betting your friends five bucks to walk on the lawn.

3) Cinéma Vérité. Blockbuster movies are bad for people because everyone in them is so plain-cut good or evil. So when we don’t always do exactly the right thing, we feel horrible. Blockbusters don’t allow for shades of gray, which is what we all are. We should watch more Katharine Hepburn/Spencer Tracy movies , because everyone always had a little bit of everything in them.