I really want to be a part of those movies that say something good to a lot of people.

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.

I feel like I would have ultimately ended up pursuing acting. It probably would have been much more difficult and taken a lot longer for me to get into it professionally.

[Woody Allen] does very few takes, and he doesn't give a whole ton of directions, although he does give direction.

I got turned down for a million jobs until I got my first movie with Francis [Ford Coppola].

I remember calling and asking, because I had a few lines that were like, "How could the character have done this?" and I hadn't read the part of the script that said what she [ Cate Blanchett] did, so they put me on the phone with Woody... Allen. I don't know if I could really say "Woody."

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.