The thing about 50 is that you've clearly reached a point where you have more of your life behind you than ahead of you, and that's a very different place to be in. You're thinking, 'I've done most of it.' I don't like that feeling. But it makes you evaluate your life and go, 'Am I doing what I want to do? Am I spending my time the way I want?' 

I think imperfections are important, just as mistakes are important. You only get to be good by making mistakes, and you only get to be real by being imperfect.

You always absorb a lot from a great actor. What you want, as an actor, no matter where you are in your career, is a partner who's going to bring everything they have to the scene.

You're in a movie, so you have to think about how something plays. It's not like you're thinking about how an audience is going to react. You're trying to present the story. You're trying to illuminate the lives of these people in the story. So I'm thinking about how my behavior as this character best illuminates what's going on with them in this moment in time. I always say it's sort of the director's job. People think that the directors direct actors. No. Really, what the director's doing is directing the audience's eye through the film.

George Clooney is great. He's incredibly prepared and he attracts a tremendously talented crew, which says a lot for him personally and professionally.

I was lucky enough to come in at the beginning of the independent film movement, and it's really shaped my life and my career.

I'm not supposed to communicate something that's completely unrealistic.