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.

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.

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.

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 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.

I always end up taking people that are morally ambiguous.

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.