When I was very small, I had that first-time-you-see-a-play experience, which immediately made me want to act, because it seemed like this incredible outlet for something I was already doing fairly compulsively anyway, which was putting on hats and costumes and doing funny voices. It was a very natural compulsion for me.

If I ever have to stop taking the subway, I'm gonna have a heart attack.

What we set out to do with this movie [Leaves of Grass] was to create something that was funny and serious and had large tonal ambitions. A movie that could be poignant and funny, and suddenly quite violent. To have a character utterly sideswiped, and to learn that life is about balance.

You dream as an actor's director of letting moments breathe through two-shots.

I've been friends with the guys in Radiohead for a lot of years, and I watch the way those guys work with incredible envy. Because whatever the slings and arrows of dealing with the record business, at the end of the day, they have total creative autonomy. They don't need a lot to do what they do, and Thom [Yorke] and Jonny [Greenwood] and the guys have their own joint in their hometown.

When you're working on a creative thing, everyone has an idea, and they're pushing it. The first time you work with anybody, you have to get comfortable with the way another person pushes hard for what they want. Familiarity breeds contempt, people say. But I've found, for creative things, familiarity breeds peace of mind, because you realize you know someone better. You trust each other. You know not to take things a certain way, or a wrong way. You get to where you don't have to waste quite so much time with diplomacy. Things are a little more efficient.

Unpopular speech is absolutely vital to the health of our nation.