The minute I know it's real to the minute we start shooting, I will work on the script, breaking it down and working on the character, doing as much research as I possibly can to the point where I feel like I eat, sleep and breathe it without looking at a page. Then I go in and try to forget all of it and just be there.

I could be inspired by something I see or something I hear and write down or send to a friend or a writer or whether I have instrumental tracks or just a couple chords recorded on my phone. If I have a couple sessions set, I'll go into the studio with the people I'm lucky enough to call my friends because I feel like I can talk to them and then suddenly our conversations turn into these songs you hear on the radio. I still don't understand how it happens but I talk about my experiences and my situations and everything and then they turn into these amazing pop songs.

I feel like I've had very few bad experiences but even those I look back on and really feel like if it weren't for them, I wouldn't be where I am. I look back on them all the time and constantly feel like I owe it to the other projects that I've made that have gotten me to where I am.

To be recognized for your hard work is a true honor. An Academy Award nomination is one thing that, five years later, I can't form a sentence about. It has not made me feel like I can work any less hard. It makes me feel like I have to work 100 times as hard, to even be as remotely good, to work through an experience that could take me through that again.

Music has always been something I wanted to do. I think just the idea of performing and entertaining and being in the studio is really what I wanted to know how that felt. I started to get into it around the same time I got into acting, but it turned into a side project because my movies were taking up most of my time.

The minute I know it's real to the minute we start shooting, I will work on the script, breaking it down and working on the character, doing as much research as I possibly can to the point where I feel like I eat, sleep and breathe it without looking at a page. Then I go in and try to forget all of it and just be there.

I think having not only personal connections with friends and family I'm able to pull from, but having a connection with so many people through social media, it also feels like I have a relationship with those people that follow me. And feel that what I'm going through, they've gone through something similar, and that's why we've connected. And they're the ones that make it into that body of work that represents them or that time in their life, because we've found each other.