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.

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.

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 vanity and narcissism will never let me go too far.

Regardless of how insane it might be, when you dig somebody you just met and you send that first text, goddamn, it's an eternity before you get the reply back.

You grow up skinny in Canada; in working-class Montreal, you're definitely the underdog.

I know it's going to sound like a cliché, but the key of successful playing a role is to sort of keep it real and earnest and react the way that one would react in those situations. Where the disconnect between the movie and the audience would happen is if you go too big or too crazy with that stuff.