I was shooting one day and it struck me that I was the age that Shirley MacLaine was when she played my mother. I had to sit down. I had to get a chair, okay? It was a weird moment.

You've got the whole civil rights movements emanating from the south, you've got the music that came out of the south that is the core of our current music, so for me that thinking comes out of having Dukes of Hazzard thrown in your face: that the south is a bunch of twangy people that I can't understand. So this is, hopefully, part of the movement to restore the south to its proper and rightful place in our nation... which is huge and pervasive. It's not about Texas - I'm not saying Texas doesn't have it's own unique history - but the south has this at its core.

I was shooting one day and it struck me that I was the age that Shirley MacLaine was when she played my mother. I had to sit down. I had to get a chair, okay? It was a weird moment.

If I could have one prayer answered, I would pray for patience. I move so fast sometimes. I try to slow down.

Show me the story. I just want to tell a story that pulls me forward.

I started out in stand-up, so it's very satisfying to make people laugh, but it usually means at your own expense.

Theater is all about the rehearsal process. In fact, I think a lot of times opening night there's a mixed sadness because you're finished with a lot of people's favorite part of the process, which is finding the character and discovering it, and then you get to live it.