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 it's more, at least at the time, a sense of abstraction. My mind doesn't really work in a way where there's a definitive sense of something. I go one way and then it opens up into a million different ideas, and somehow, when you look at the art, Buddhist art, or particularly Tibetan art, you know, it's a similar thing. All of a sudden there are a million lotus leaves and you're following one to the next and to another, and I related to that, and it felt simple and easy to me. And it made me feel smart.

When you have the opportunity to choose projects, inevitably you start being moved towards the things that you're moved by, right? And that changes over time, as we change, right?

I had not spent a ton of time around animals as a kid.

I'm at a period in my life when I'm figuring out my idea of who I am and what I want and how to hold onto love -- all that big stuff. And I'm starting to realize that it can happen at any age. I know people who are in their 50s who are figuring out what they want and who they are, and I think it's great. It's like you're always approaching life as a beginner.

I admire actors and artists who devote just as much time to their life as they do to their work.

Dad, I may not be the best, but I come to believe that I got it in me to be somebody in this world. And it's not because I'm so different from you either. It's because I'm the same. I mean, I can be just as hard-headed, and just as tough. I only hope I can be as good a man as you.