The idea of it [Star Wars] is really exciting, but the most fun part is the actual job you get to do: the character that you get to play, the people that you work with, the day-to-day experience.

Warren [Beatty] did a very cool thing, where he directs in character.

[Warren Beatty] will sometimes spend hours on a very small detail to make sure he gets it right. After the kind of work that he's made, he certainly doesn't have to be doing that.

[ Being director] is really reassuring to me that it's just about who is right for that role and less about if you ace the audition. It's just about getting to know people, not about who's a better actor a lot of the time. It's about who fits that particular suit, you know?

Basically, Beautiful Creatures was the first lead that I had since Tetro, and it was a lesson in seeing what it's like to film a movie that's of a much bigger scale. It was a good initiation.

You get bummed out, and then you go, "Oh! Now I get to go buy a present for myself." That kind of helps.

[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.