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

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.

You have to let go of stuff when you act for a while. You stay too attached to things that have worked or haven't worked, it kind of makes it harder for you to move forward. So I try to concentrate on the experience that I have and then let the public expression of it be its own deal.

When you get many opportunities early on, and you have people who have been working for a while counting on you, you have to at least pretend that you know what you're doing. So any actor that's pretending, you start to develop philosophies. Without years and years of experience, you kind of go with an attitude that you know what you're doing. And so I think right around that time, I was kind of at the peak of rigidly thinking that I knew how to work in film in a way that I wanted to. Cameron was extremely patient and generous with me.

From here on out, I am only interested in what is real. Real people, real feelings, that's it. That's all I'm interested in.

Every time I do a movie, I think it's going to be a huge hit.

I wish I could say that when I didn't agree with a director I defer to him, but I think sometimes I'm a little self-righteous.