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.

I did my first film with Francis Ford Copploa which spoiled the hell out of me.

Howard Hughes innovation was in the aviation field. His designs and spirit of experimentation was at the forefront. As far as his work as film producer, he certainly went after a bigger and more ambitious kind of filmmaking, even if he wasn't necessarily a cinema artist.

Elia Kazan - the films he made were such a big deal for me when I was growing up.

I'm glad to be an actor to be employed by people who are now 12, probably. I look forward to that.

That was cool, because they've all [ George Clooney and Josh Brolin and Scarlett Johansson] worked with the Coens. They were much more at ease with them at the outset, and they were all kind of familiar with the shorthand that the Coens had.

Even though I grew up in L.A., no one in my family was in the movie industry.