It would be kind of ill to see Rachel McAdams win an Oscar [for Spotlight] - I don't think people give her credit for her range, she started in a kind of character with younger demographic-aged films and really made a push to be taken more seriously and got a lot of opportunities and knocked it out the park. But I feel like Jennifer Jason Leigh deserves one, maybe not just for Hateful Eight but for [Anomalisa] and everything. Like, I tried to watch Adaption again, that's rough!

The director Denis [Villeneuve] is actually an actor (he's from Sons of Anarchy and he's a great character actor) and he's also a screenwriter (he wrote What Lies Beneath). It blows my mind to see when people from one sector move to another and excel. I think Sicario was one of the best directed and written films. It did get [a nomination for best] cinematography, though.

Basically, I'm going to take what you did, the bare-bones structure of what you were trying to do, how you were attacking the song, and attack it in pretty much the same way, just with more intensity to show you that you could've come harder. Like, I've been in situations where I've had to tell a cat how to rhyme his rhyme.

Obviously movies like this [Fast and the Furious 7] don't get any love from the Academy. If they do, it may be special effects or sound editing or something like that.

I think Straight Outta Compton is one of the greatest biopics, but I am biased on that one, obviously. There are some things the Academy gets wrong and it's important to call them on it. But in other instances, there are simply just better actors. They're doing a better job than they've done, but there's still room for improvement.

Jay was intimidating to the point where I was totally intimidated before I even got to the booth. But I was like, this is going to be a test of my mettle. In the South, I'm regarded as the guy who, quote unquote, out-rapped Jay-Z.

My parents are from a whole different culture. My parents are from small-town Louisiana. It's like, if it walk like a duck, talk like a duck, then it's a duck. And if you ain't quacking, you ain't no duck.