I'm always nervous about it. You know, somehow, without even knowing it, I try and recreate the idea of what it feels like to go in front of an audience every night when I'm making a film. And that similar type of pressure and excitement before a scene, or preparing for a movie, so...

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

Being the youngest, I constantly have that insecurity of being the youngest, which ultimately is probably my drive. in a lot of ways. In terms of as an artist, the way we could communicate as a family very clearly was through movies and through acting, and when things became complicated with all of our own personalities, that's where we are most clear. I think that's also where we are most brutal with each other as well.

I was brought up, and my sister too, with two people who were always saying, "What you do is really nowhere near as important as the things that are going on in the world, and if your work needs to reflect that, or you want it to, then you need to strive for a certain type of excellence."

Sometimes you need an anchor, whatever it might be. You need a space to connect. So often you get into a way of doing things.

You run your plays, you know your plays, you study your plays, you study the other team, you do as much as you can, you go to practice, you get in shape, you do what you need to do, and then by the time you get to the game, you know your plays, but they have to feel like they're in your bones. That has to be an unconscious thing, it cannot be conscious. That is everything to me.

Do you know what fear stands for? False Evidence Appearing Real.