Interest in certain themes doesn't mandate a personal stake or personal experience of those themes. I've killed people in plays, but no one asks me what it's like to kill people.

You can find the richness in any moment, even the most seemingly bleak. To try to do a movie about that was a joyful experience. So actually, it was really the context of it that made the experience so worthwhile, rather than the actual subject matter, if that makes sense.

All you really have when you're acting is the confidence and your ability to manage and tell a story by creating a character.

When somebody on a professional scale says "you did it wrong," it has a pretty intense impact. If you don't have some kind of opposing force to say, "that's all right, that's their opinion," or, "I may have screwed that one up but I'll do better the next time," then you're screwed.

My parents were really encouraging. But I had to teach them the proper way you respond to an actor after seeing a play - regardless of whether you like their performance you tell them how great they are because they have to go on again the next night.

Being fired is something... You have to really want to be an actor after you go through something like that. Because the level of self-doubt and insecurity that creeps into your psyche is monumental.

Interest in certain themes doesn't mandate a personal stake or personal experience of those themes. I've killed people in plays, but no one asks me what it's like to kill people.