When you take on a role, even if the character is somebody that you are dissimilar to, you have to identify with the role and look for an emotional connection even if there is not a biographical one.

If you went to Harvard Medical School, chances are you'll be a doctor at some place. There's a career trajectory. Acting, there's nothing. It's constantly trying to procure jobs - it's very disconcerting.

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.

I don't concern myself with thinking ahead to the finished product. I focus more specifically on what the character is experiencing. Once you relieve yourself of the very arbitrary and always punishing pressure of what an audience is expecting you to do, acting becomes a lot more fun and pure.

When cellphones came out, my girlfriend refused to get one for five years, because she thought it would turn her into somebody who couldn't connect with other people - and, of course, she got a cellphone.

I hate watching me. I hate watching me. It just makes me feel awful. I think, 'I look stupid from that angle. I wish I didn't let them put that shirt on me.'

I feel equal parts lucky and scared anytime I get a job.