I'd say that the No. 1 attribute you need as an actor is to be malleable. You need to be able to change and tailor what you're doing to what the situation dictates.

For every big American movie I've done where I was the supporting guy, I've gone back home to Canada to do supporting movies where I was the lead.

I'm a massive movie nerd. That being said, I could retire tomorrow because I wrote this movie 'Goon' and it came out, and it connected and it's a wonderful flick that I think is beautiful and then it had this wonderful life and it means a lot to a lot of people.

If you know what you want and you hire people that can do it, there's no reason it should be arduous and torturous. I wanted everyone to enjoy themselves on my set and want to be there, to take ownership of it and pitch ideas to me and know that this is their flick.

My mom said to me when I was a little kid, "You don't have to hate your job. Just because you see all these unhappy grown-ups doesn't mean you have to be one of them." She said, "Find something that you would do for free and find a way to get paid to do it." That's been my guiding principle.

In the best-case scenario, the audience sees themselves in your shoes. The only way you can do that is if you try to play it as if it was happening to you.

I enjoy acting, and it's given me a ton of happiness and it's affected my life and my family's lives in ways that we just can't imagine.