I remember hearing someone say that good acting is more about taking off a mask than putting one on, and in movie acting, certainly that's true. With the camera so close, you can see right down into your soul, hopefully. So being able to do that in a way is terrifying, and in another way, truly liberating. And I like that about it.

We want to be seen for who we really are, and each person has his own complex story and reasons for doing what they do.

You can't ask the guy with the checkbook to always be the person. So, we actors have to try. And believe me, it's not just young people who are struggling with this, trying to get things of substance made because of the proliferation of technology that it's just harder and harder to get things that really matter made. But they are being done and you just have to fight the good fight and try to... if you have something that you have written, you have to do your best to try to get it made in whatever way you can.

Maybe that's one of the virtues of the 2016 election that we're going through is all of this racism and xenophobia and sexism and whatever else you want to say is being exposed, maybe that's a blessing. I'm trying to look at the positive side of what's been happening in our country, which is frightening.

You read something and you know it's not there yet. There's a little section here that... this part's good but that is a little not, it doesn't quite work. That doesn't quite work. That's easy. To say, "OK, now, this is what I think will fix it." That's harder. And most people can tell you what's wrong with something. Very few people can say what they would do to fix it.

This is a good thing to say to film students. If there's a story point that you don't feel right about, that there's a question you have - "Does it really make sense?" Or, "Is that plausible? Is it implausible? Is it set up?" Or whatever. Go at it. Don't let it go. If there's a question in your mind, you're probably right. You probably do need to work on it and think about it more.

A lot of acting is working with your own psyche in order to allow yourself to be open and reveal yourself. But then of course there's a healthy part of you that says, "Well, don't do that." You know, you're going to be in front of people. You could look foolish. You could get it wrong. You could be too big or too small or not realistic or whatever those things are. People might criticize you. There's all kinds of reasons not to be open. But you do want to be open.