In 'Zombieland,' it was such a freewheeling plot it almost didn't matter what the characters were doing scene to scene as long as there was a consistent banter.

[As an actor] you're looking to crawl into an anonymous fictional person's skin, but then you have the ironic obligation to promoting the movie in such a public way that it almost undermines the initial intention of going under the radar.

I grew up in Queens and New Jersey. I started doing children's theater when I was seven to get out of school because I didn't fit in.

I write plays, and I have a musical that's starting to get produced now. That's what I would love to do, but it's so hard. The only reason people are reading my plays and musicals is because I'm in movies.

Everyone's a geek in some way or other. Everyone's an outsider.

There’s something strange about theater. My characters consistently demonize elitism, but of course it’s taking place in a theater where only so many people can see it. I’ve been in silly popcorn movies - the kind of thing that as an actor you might feel embarrassed about - but those movies reach many more people.

You can tell when you watch a movie, usually, what the actors' experience was on the movie, because even the smallest of roles were interesting.