The minute you try to do something that is not true to you, is not something that you really know about, and is not a lifestyle or world that you live in or can relate to, it's going to come off as false.

As an actor, most of the time, you only have so much say in how, what and where things go. As a director, you really get to paint a bigger picture. You have many more brushes to use.

Directing is something that I'd been wanting and hoping to do, as I've grown into myself.

There are always going to be people who are more famous and more bankable than you, and then conversely, you may be more famous and more bankable than other people. But, there was a time that I would take jobs because they were there.

I'd love to say that every move I make is completely calculated and I'm sitting on a pile of scripts, sifting through them for the perfect role, but the fact is that there are a lot of talented people out there and there's a lot of competition in our business.

Nothing is worse for me, as an actor, than when I walk on a set and the director goes, "Okay, you're going to be standing here, the other person is going to be standing here, and you're going to move to there and then do the scene." That doesn't help actors.

Having been an actor, I always want to leave room for the actors to find their comfort zone, so I don't like to be too rigid in how I plan my shots. It's different if you have weeks to rehearse and you can rehearse on your sets or in your locations and you can plan that out with your actors, but in modern independent filmmaking, you don't really have that time. You have to have a certain level of improvisation.