After I left LA... it was like waking up. And so I moved back east and stopped auditioning.

If I can't see the humor in it, how am I going to be funny?

Great books don't make great movies. There's too much information in there.

When you're the guy behind the camera, you're aware of the reasons for the compromises or the changes that get made. As an actor, you go and do your thing, and someone else down the line then does all the math and goes, "We can't include that thing where he's pretending to be dumb and needling those people, because it takes a minute and a half, and it ruins the next scene. It doesn't make sense." If you're directing, you're the one doing that.

Sometimes I feel like every movie I make could be the last. I know that's not really the case, but if I think about it that way and I'm very careful, then maybe I can build a career, movie by movie, that I'm happy with.

When a performance isn't working, it's usually because the actor is trying to do something and they're not able to express their idea very well. It's a muddled expression.

Definitely, my approach is me-oriented. I feel like my job is to safeguard the believability of the emotions of the character.