One of the things I've always enjoyed is moving around and staying fit. Physicality is such a big part of being an actor, but it's also about stillness and silence.

I'm hardly digging trenches for a living. I'm getting to tap into my boyhood fantasies of being a larger-than-life character.

At some point, you have to disconnect, if the obsession with playing a real person gets in the way of the movie at large. At the same time, we're all interested, as actors in trying to get as close to the real thing as we can, and whatever you can do in order to create that transformation feels fun and, for me, the furthest I can get away from myself is fun. It's all part of the costume, the accent, and all that stuff. It's about trying to get close without it being a detriment to the point of view of the story that you're trying to tell.

Everything is a learning process: any time you fall over, it's just teaching you to stand up the next time.

To act with a tennis ball and imagine it's a tentacle, or if you're in some kind of wilderness film and you go, 'Okay, we can't have a grizzly bear here, but imagine when you step over the rock there there's a grizzly bear.' I don't know. They're tough moments.

I often times find with movies that the heavier the onscreen situation is, the more levity there is off screen. It's almost out of necessity.

The tricky thing becomes: Do you know yourself well enough to then portray that on screen? And for me, I find that really hard. I'd rather hide behind accents and funny walks.