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

[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.

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.

Some movies, I think, present ideas of the world that just don't help people with their lives. They just present things that are fleeting or stupid. So that's what I'm careful about - making sure I'm part of something that is saying something that I think is valuable in the world of people, not necessarily in the world of art.

I had four years of auditions, and nothing happened, until Francis Ford Coppola took a shot on me ['Tetro' in 2009]. I hadn't done a film, and suddenly I was the lead.

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

Warren [Beatty] loves to talk about his experiences with [Elia] Kazan.