Matt McGorry quotes:

I was the youngest member of the New York International Brotherhood of Magicians. It was me and a bunch of 60-year-old Jewish men.

I was a personal trainer for about a decade. I competed in powerlifting, and I did a bodybuilding competition. I was heavily entrenched in the personal training world.

The mind is the most important part of achieving any fitness goal. Mental change always comes before physical change.

I never particularly thought of myself as great with girls. I can be awkward, and I have a strange sense of humor at times. But I've also been learning to try and embrace that.

I wasn't athletic as a kid, and I was self-conscious about my body, but then in eighth grade I won a school contest, and the prize was a bunch of personal training sessions.

The whole reason I did a bodybuilding show was to see how far I could push my own discipline. It was the hardest thing I've ever done. When I made the switch to acting, I was able to break that down into small, measurable goals like I did with bodybuilding.

My character on 'Orange is the New Black' is not one that requires being absolutely shredded with 5% body fat. But I wouldn't be opposed to doing that for a role one day.

I honestly love any good chick flick, as long as it's a good movie or pretty funny. 'Love Actually' is a no-brainer.

In 2010, I was ranked top 50 in the deadlift in three different weight classes, and I won my first natural bodybuilding competition.

When you're used to being at a point where you're deadlifting close to 600 pounds, getting to be 5.5 percent body fat and seeing veins in places you shouldn't see them, it kind of skews your understanding of what is normal and OK.

I feel like my early experiences of acting, and I think a lot of other actors' too, are probably at camp or school plays where you get to have great range. At camp, I remember getting to play a 50-year-old man.

I got a lot of empathy from my mother growing up, and I think it prevented me from ever really just writing people off.

I love the stuff that makes you laugh and cry. It kind of sucker-punches you a little bit. That's the thing that most interests me as a performer, in addition to telling the most captivating story.

I'd feel weird on a show where it was a bunch of dudes that are my type. I like sticking out a little.

I understand that in TV, people like likable people. In film, you can get away with playing a terrible person. In TV, you're in people's homes every week.

It's nice being liked for playing the nice guy, but it's also fun to be the funny one.

I've had to realize I need to distance myself a bit from relying on the feedback. I think it's wonderful but can also be poison. You don't want to buy into it too much.

Did people waste time before the internet existed?

I know some people who are like, 'I love fitness,' and I feel like if you have to say that, you're still in the romance stage. I'm in the stage where I've been married to it for 60 years, and I don't think I'll ever get a divorce.

For me, my preference for comedy is grounding it in the psychology of the character, and not just kind of making faces. Even when it's a crazy character, grounded comedy resonates more with people because it doesn't look like you're watching someone do vaudeville. No offense to vaudeville.

As for my personal style, I like comfort a lot, like jeans and T-shirts. Having been a trainer for so long, I spend a lot of my days in tank tops, shorts, and T-shirts. Still, I do like the occasions where I get to wear suits and make that a thing.

At some point, you're just happy to be a working actor, but to be able to do it with people you really love and enjoy spending time with, it's just such a rare thing. You hear so many horror stories.

People who act the most arrogant often are the most insecure, and they just can't even begin to accept the possibility that they might not be as good as they think they are.

I had a lot of nerves for a long time about career-oriented things, and I've slowly sort of let myself relax into it a bit. Part of me thinks that's maybe the effect of being on two hit shows. I like to think that maybe it's more: You do the things you do, and you do the best you can, and that's all you can hope for, and don't worry too much if it's not it.

It's rewarding for me to have people know me as two very different characters. I think when you see people as one character, you expect that they are like that character. So it's nice to be able to throw people for a loop a little bit.