I need a challenge. I need the intellectual stimulation. I'm a member of a community on each film, working in concert to try to bring an idea to life. It's a great job.

All my friends were going off to be professionals, and I said I wanted to be an actor.

Acting is not about competing. Acting is about cooperating. Acting is about collaboration. It's about your utility, your usefulness, your capacity to add to the work that has already been done and will be done. You're just part of a team. I never feel competitive about acting.

I've always been somewhere down from the top, so I've never had to suffer being knocked off the top.

I just like the process of taking something written on a sheet of paper and giving it life and shape. I like the collaborative process of filmmaking, which is all simply to say that I love my work and I would continue to look for things that have the potential to be engaging and successful.

I came across the script [42], and I read it, and I said, "I really want to do this." And when I had my agent call, they said, ah, you know, it's not what they're looking for. So, OK. And then I let it go for a while, and then it just kept gnawing at me, so I kept pushing.

Some actors couldn't figure out how to withstand the constant rejection. They couldn't see the light at the end of the tunnel.