For me, the drive is storytelling. To be a part of an art that tells a story and to be a catalyst, a color in that, is very exciting.

I've definitely been spoilt. Every movie I've done, it's always the same criteria: finding a great story, and finding a great part to play.

I grew up watching a lot of old movies, so getting to ask about making movies in the '70s and people he was friends with, like Orson Welles, Lillian Hellman and Charlie Chaplin, and hearing a first-person account was pretty incredible.

I honesty feel that each film has its own particular challenges.

I had four years of auditions, and nothing happened, until Francis Ford Coppola took a shot on me ['Tetro' in 2009]. I hadn't done a film, and suddenly I was the lead.

It feels like you're being invited into a kind of community [working with the Coen brothers].

My parents weren't involved in show business but my parents would show me. We'd watch old films in the house.