It's much simpler to be tortured on camera or to be filmed losing your mind. Whereas a script that has characters who are honest, witty and genuine is often much harder to act.

That's one of my favorite songs of all time. It's so beautiful. It's an old song, sung by Nina Simone. This is the Cat Power cover. We pushed hard to get it and were lucky. It's so stunning.

I grew up working in Canada so everything was low budget.

You should've gone to China, you know, 'cause I hear they give away babies like free iPods. You know, they pretty much just put them in those t-shirt guns and shoot them out at sporting events.

I've always been a huge fan of Patricia's [Rozema ], as a director and as a writer, and she's a friend. For me, Patricia is one of those people who can cross genre in a way that I think has been pretty incredible, if you look at her career and the versatility of her work.

You think you're in a place where you're all 'I'm thrilled to be gay, I have no issues about being gay anymore, I don't feel shame about being gay,' but you actually do. You're just not fully aware of it. I think I still felt scared about people knowing. I felt awkward around gay people; I felt guilty for not being myself.

I remember having been with this book [Into the Forest] for a long time, and I remember the moment that she [Patricia Rozema] sent me the script and what it was like to read it for the first time. I just was so blown away by how she managed to capture the story and their relationship to each other, and the nuances of that.