My favorite phrase, that a friend of mine who worked on the Potter films and was a lot older than me would use in front of me, and I picked up from him many great phrases - the English have a lot of great idioms for sweating. I don't know why that is. But that's what we do. I feel like it's particularly our country; probably everywhere has a lot of idioms for sweating. He always said, "I'm sweating like a glassblower's asshole," which I always found an incredibly strange and yet vivid image.

I think, as an actor, and particularly if you are playing the lead in something, you have to view yourself as the head of department for the cast. All of the other departments are accountable and have somebody at the helm who is leading them all the time, and I don't think that the actors should be any different.

My friends have always called me 'Mr. Thorough,' in that when I get into something, I become obsessed with it.

I've been working since I was 9, and I've never known a life without a film set.

Fans are really important for me. And if they take pains to write me, it's the minimum that I answer myself.

We would choreograph [ with Paul Dano] before each scene [in Swiss Army Man] and very quickly got to a place where we could improvise physically in scene and know that the other person would respond in character appropriately. So that [dynamic] was a lot of fun.

I'm always amazed at the way some actors' behaviour is truly disgusting. That's one thing that will never happen on one of my sets if I ever direct.