By anyone's measure, [Warren Beatty] is proven himself. But he still sets out to make something as great as it possibly can be.

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

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

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.

Acting-wise, I've had all these experiences. Yet when I look at certain people whose careers I admire, they've gotten to play so many different characters. So it's just that - getting to have more of these singular little adventures where you get to be a part of a completely different world.

[The Yellow Birds] is based on a novel written by Kevin Powers, who is an Iraq War vet. I play a soldier who promises my friend's mother I'm going to keep him alive. But when we go overseas to Iraq, he gets killed. It's about what happened to him, my reckoning and dealing with that as I return home from the war.

I want to make movies that people see. I really think that movies are the most popular form of story telling ever and have such a huge impact on culture when they do.