Directing is a big responsibility to take on. I think I'm only good at doing things I know very well. I don't direct movies because I get offered the new vampire movie or science fiction movie. I don't get offered those, anyway, but if I did, I would just tell 'em, "Look, I'm the wrong guy." I only do things about people and situations, and I do the ones that I think I'm the best guy for the job on, which is usually something I generate myself.

I figured I would have to tell someone to kiss my ass before it was all over, and I have -- twice.

I'm really influenced by Southern novelists, not many movie people. More like John Faulkner, William Faulkner, Erskine Caldwell, Flannery O'Connor, John Steinbeck, and people like that.

I always wanted to play a lawyer.

I grew up in Arkansas and that's the law. My dad was a high school basketball coach, so I was raised as a coach's son and I was a baseball player back in Arkansas, and I lived in Texas, too, so I was just surrounded by sports. So that's what I was going to do: Pitch for the St Louis Cardinals. I had no idea I was going to be an actor. So I got my collar bone broken in the Kansas City Royals training camp. And once I got hurt I started doing other things for a while.

I've danced one time in my life. It was the most mortifying experience I ever had.

Anytime you get a chance to play some extreme character, in any direction, it's always a great blessing.