When I was a little kid, my parents would show me Marx Brothers films and westerns and stuff like that. Thats where all my desire to be an actor comes from and probably most of my understanding of acting comes from for sure.

Warren [Beatty] was very adamant and very encouraging of me to direct. It's definitely something that I'd like to pursue more in the future.

I'm kind of grateful that I didn't have any real success until I was older and basically out of high school. I think that was a real confidence boost for me, having it all start that way, in that very privileged position of having him vouch for me.

I auditioned for four or five years and didn't get anything after that.

I remember Tetro was a big deal to me at that time. It was going from zero to one: Never having been in a movie, a person who had no relationship to any of that, and that was my first movie.

Let's say [Warren Beatty] wants you to speak louder in a scene. He won't stop playing the role and say to you as a director, "Will you speak louder on the next take?" He'll say it as Howard Hughes: "I can't totally hear you. Why don't you speak up a little bit?" To kind of keep this rhythm going.

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.