I have no problem playing anyone who has different politics than me. In fact, I don't take that into consideration at all. You have to find something sympathetic in a man. It's that common ground you need to connect with someone.

I've been planted here to be a vessel for acting... That's why I'm really taking any part, regardless of how complicated it's going to be.

To play a repressed gay man, I had to explore what life was like in an era of sexual repression.

As a little kid growing up in Hollywood, I was called 'a little crazy'. And now I guess I'm still that way.

When I was eighteen, River Phoenix was far and away my hero. Think of all those early great performances - My Own Private Idaho. Stand by Me. I always wanted to meet him. One night, I was at this Halloween party, and he passed me. He was beyond pale - he looked white. Before I got a chance to say hello, he was gone, driving off to the Viper Room, where he fell over and died. That's a lesson.

Most of the time I just keep to myself. I think like what it would be like to be... someone else.

I think everyone has some sort of connection to Gatsby as a character... he's created himself according to his own emotions and dreams and lifted himself by his bootstraps from a poor kid in the Midwest and created this image that is The Great Gatsby and it's a truly American story in that regard.