As a producer, you have an opportunity to see the whole and bring people together.

I remember Chris Cooper saying to me - I was doing October Sky with him - and he said, "You know, you're just yelling at me." He's like, "You're just yelling. You need to listen." We were in a fight, and you know, oh you'd get so excited as an actor, you're like, "We have a fight, oh, I get to get mad." And he just said, "You need to listen." And I started listening - and then all of a sudden where I was listening was where, I don't know, anger became something else.

Crazy people don't sit around wondering if they're nuts.

I have an overactive brain, and as a result of that, I can really get in my own mind. So I like to try and exercise it to the point of exhaustion.

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

As Uta Hagen would say, there's the representational actor and the presentational actor. My sister [Maggie Gyllenhaal] came up to me recently after she saw this movie, Southpaw, the movie I did, and she thought there was this exploration of that type of presentation, and a bit of representation as well, if I could be totally honest, where she was deeply moved.

As an actor, no matter what, you're at the whim of so many other people all the time.