I've turned down good directors before because I knew the part didn't speak to me and I've worked with less talented directors before because the part I had such passion for.

Oh, I like going down the rabbit hole. You know, that's kind of my job. When you play Macbeth, you gotta dive down that one. The trick is figuring out how to do it with love and a sense of humor so you can pop back out again. But, kind of the actor's job is to go down the rabbit hole.

I met a lot of famous people when I was about 24. And none of them seemed very appealing. And so I didn't know why I would struggle to be that kind of person.

I remember staying up all night waiting to see the first screening of Cape Fear because you knew that every time Robert DeNiro had a performance it was going to be revelatory. Then DeNiro hit this place, he seemed like he was done with the emotional cost of impaling himself like that, and he dedicated himself to comedy.

Sometimes people, their creative drive comes from an energy to try to heal themselves.

Well, there's a great Marlon Brando quote that to do something well you have to spiritually marry your director. You have to be making the same movie they are in that you have to try to help their imagination be better, and more full, and more fully realized, but you can't have a different imagination because then you end up - and you see this a lot in movies - where it feels like they were making five different films.

Whenever a really passionate, talented filmmaker seems to have an interest in me, I take it very seriously because I like to work.