'Brokeback Mountain' takes all your conceptions of America, and the Western, and cowboys, and sexuality, and love, and it stirs them all up.

I know exactly what that movie's [Brokeback mountain] about. I can't define it; it doesn't tie up in a perfect bow. But it's about adolescence. It's about what it feels like - this isn't meant as a criticism, but like things I didn't relate to, which were high school movies. Where I'd watch it and I'd be like, "Well, am I like the kid that nobody likes? Or am I like the person who everybody [likes]?" I couldn't [tell]. I was like quantifying, putting me in a box. "This is my personality at that age" and "I'm this kind of person" just felt like bullshit to me.

I'm a harsh critic, you know? I am.

Not to say that you should be constantly trying to change the world, but I think it's important to know that whatever we do has an implication and has an effect, and because of that it is political.

Even as an actor, I think like a storyteller. My parents raised us to look at the script.

Theater has given me a different perspective on the way I approach films.

I don't have a "I want to play this or that," I just don't have that. I've never been like that.