Whenever you hear somebody else is auditioning for something, you sort of assume they're going to get it. You should try to just ignore it. I don't find it very helpful to know who else is going up for stuff, generally.

I've always felt whatever the opposite of disillusioned is. I guess illusioned with movies and with people in movies and things like that. It's all exciting to me.

[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.

The actors at that time had to learn all that stuff, it wasn't just hyperbole. What was appealing to me about being an actor at that time is that there was a home base, with job security. You were employed on a regular basis, and you had to sometimes do things you didn't want to do, but it was there. I also liked Hobie Doyle positivity.

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

[The Coen brothers] hire the same people over and over again, so there's a shorthand between all of the people they're working with.

It feels like you're being invited into a kind of community [working with the Coen brothers].