There's big studio films I didn't want to do. I didn't want to go through the hoops and ladders. I wouldn't have been able to work with the directors I've worked with if I did those studio films.

I've always had a longstanding dream, ever since I was a kid, where I was running on a big lake of ice and I kept running and kept running, just about to where I was trying to get to, and I fell through the ice, and then I couldn't find the hole where I fell through to get back out again.

You might think the thinner version of yourself is going to be the most positive or confident, but that's not how it is for me. When I'm over 200 pounds, that's when I'm the most confident version of myself.

Growing up, I would watch a movie on video and would go to the back of the VHS and locate the address for Universal Pictures or MGM or whatever. I'd write to the studios asking them if I could be in a movie. They never wrote me back.

I was into punk rock back when I was in high school. I used to go around to dive venues and take photographs. But now it’s been just much more about the country stuff and soulful folk.

In my experience, the best directors I've worked with hired people for a purpose. They hire them with trust. There's not many notes. There's confidence and support.

For me, and this may not be everybody, but because I do love country music so much, there's such a feeling of home in Nashville, especially because it's such a small town. You bring up one song, everybody knows who wrote it, everybody knows their mother and what their cell number is, and all of the stories.