Same job, whether it's comedy or drama. Regardless of the weight of the role, I feel like the job is always kind of the same. Who is this person? What's this guy here, and how is he playing with this thing, and what's he trying to say? And what's the volley with all these other people around him?

Setting goals can blind you to opportunities. You might be trying to get to point C. When opportunity B comes, you don't even look at it because you're going straight to C.

I don't think there's any connection between my journalism career and my film career. They are two totally different mediums and very different skills.

Jack Nicholson is fairly gifted. We were at the Sistine Chapel, and everybody went from looking straight up to looking across the room at him.

When you have a director who has work you can identify from the past, it gives you some reference point as to what their interpretation of the story might be, and how that might jibe, right or wrong, with how you see it. But with a first-time director, you don't really know where you're at.

When I look back on my childhood, I think of that short time in Beirut. I know that seeing the city collapse around me forced me to grasp something many people miss: the fragility of peace.

My adolescence was all tits and champagne. I'm downplaying the magic of it all.