James Cagney as a baby is not my ideal thing.

The first time I ever cried in a movie was in Dead Poet's Society.

I don't think I've ever signed onto anything as quickly as I did The Hollars, because I come from a really loving, well-connected family, where we see each other all the time. And when I was done with this script, I was like, "Oh my god, that's my family!" This is obviously a very dysfunctional family, but there was something about it that was sort of universal. And I think that in this day and age in today's world - there's a lot of drama out there. It's nice to tell stories about things as simple and powerful as family.

Why don't we try falling in love first and then I'll see what happens after that?

I fell in love with the book [ Brief Interviews with Hideous Men] and always wanted to do something with and fought to get the rights, which was pretty fun and an incredible experience in itself.

To be an actor and a director, I actually felt it helped me tremendously to be in the scenes of The Hollars, because as you can see, they're very intimate, very intense scenes. You don't want to break the actor's character and you don't want to break their momentum, so as the actor, I tried not to call cut as much as I could, and almost make it feel like a play, just set this environment where these amazing actors could do what they wanted to do.

Being funny is one of my greatest strengths. I can make girls smile when they're down, and when they're having a good time, I can carry on the joke.