I went through this very serious Woody Allen phase in college and a little bit after college. I still see his movies.

Kindness is not about instant gratification. More often, it's akin to a low-risk investment that appreciates steadily over time.

It really shocks me when I encounter people who think kindness doesn't matter. Because I think it's pretty much the only thing that matters.

My whole thing is that I want to explore why you read books, what's the purpose of reading, and maybe that it's not that cool to hate something just because it's popular.

I remember the first day I was looking at my hands and I thought about my nails. People wouldn't really be paying attention to that, but a Civil War doctor - What would they be doing with their nails? Would they cut them really low? And Dr. Burns said, "No, they would let them grow out so they can scoop stuff out. They would use their nails." So for a while I let my nails grow. They were too long. I kept stabbing myself by accident, so I cut them down, but I was trying to be faithful to the details.

I learned to choose my battles. Sometimes I let my producer deal with something that I didn't want to deal with.

I think a lot of Civil War stuff is written - As they say, history is written by the victors. And one of the things that I think is fascinating about this from a purely dramatic perspective is whether someone is right or wrong, you understand where they're coming from in this.