The thing a drama school can't give you is instinct. It can sharpen instinct but that can't be taught, and you have to have intuition. It's an essential ingredient.

The work I enjoy is when the camera rolls, and I like the work in the moment.

My passion and energy get mistaken for anger.

When you play a character that is so emotionally closed there are times when you ask yourself if you are doing enough and if it's reading. That is where you have a director, who is the barometer of what you are doing.

Impressionists have to paint with a very broad stroke because you've got to see it within a couple of seconds. You go, "That's a really funny Robert De Niro." As an actor, though, you look at different aspects of a character. I try to completely surround myself with the assignment. It's like being in a big cloud and then some of it rains through.

At the Oscars, if you didn't vote for '12 Years a Slave' you were a racist.

I went and lived in Chicago for a year , and I studied at the police academy.