As an actor, you are in a unique position because you’re not only memorizing dialogue but really embodying it. You naturally feel the rhythm of good writing.

It's very hard to be a playwright because it's very competitive.

Acting is kind of difficult to intellectualize - it's a far more visceral experience. It's really hard to be able to think about and then employ these kind of esoteric notions of this person's backstory and try to weave it in somehow. It's just kind of impossible.

It's so nerve-wracking to be on a set. They're the most stressful place in the world, because you're making something permanent, and there are so many people relying on you in a lot of ways.

My mom always said that she didn't wear a red nose and big shoes because that's the reason people are scared of clowns. My dad is a sociology teacher, so he probably figured that out with her. Those are the things that are exaggerated, that don't give off the signals of humans. You know, if you draw a picture of a circle and ask somebody to feel empathy with the circle, they won't. But if you draw literally two, three dots inside the circle, like two eyes and a nose, you immediately feel empathy.

I personally don’t feel the need to be radical for its own sake, but I probably couldn’t if I tried anyway.

The movies that are really big, at least in my experience, oftentimes don't have characters that I feel as personally connected to.