You do need these people to go out on a limb for you, thinking you're right for a role rather than having box office numbers.

I had one line. My two larger scenes had gone fine, and then on that day I screwed up that line over and over and over again. And every time I screwed it up, they can't use the whole thing because they're only using the one shot [in Blue Jasmin]. That was my last day.

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

But even a kid, directing was something that I did. I made short films in school. I feel like I've been in the best film school in the world.

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 think you always feel like you're about a hair's breadth away from being a bad actor anyway... It's not too hard to let the rope go slack, so to speak.

Just getting to talk to that person [Woody Allen ] in real life was pretty wild.