Hardest emotion? They're all pretty damn hard; I don't know really if there's one specifically, but I do think, I don't know what's happening or what I'm feeling when I'm actually listening.

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.

There's no shame in somebody who doesn't necessarily do that job knowing a little bit more in that instance than you might know about your own job, you know, and I think that is where movies are such a collaborative art form.

My parents taught me as a kid: do your work. Do it well. Try as hard as you can, whatever it is. It will one day, for the long run, it will make some sort of change somewhere.

As much as I am one for real human interaction, I also want to make a show that's entertaining and that people want to see.

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."

I think I'm not in this work to not look at life as it is. I'm not in it to say, "I want to wear a mask and escape," you know. I want to know what's happening in the world, and I want to have it touch me in a way that I can do something, my little part like that, and have it somehow translate.