Unfortunately, in some parts of the country, some kids are taught at an early age that being different is somehow bad or wrong or worthy of ridicule.

Kids aren't born to be bullies, they're taught to be bullies.

Forget horror icon, Kety Bates is an icon. She's an acting icon. I was raised on so many of her films, everything from Misery to Fried Green Tomatoes to Delores Claiborne, all films that I've watched multiple times and been inspired by.

I'm a long time [Scott] Fitzgerald fan, as probably everyone in America is. And I've always been fascinated by that theme of, what is the price of the American dream and what parts of your soul do you walk away with? The conflict of art versus commerce was also very interesting to me.

When you are the avatar for the writer/director, a lot of times, I just trusted him. If he had a choice, even if it wasn't necessarily what was my first impulse, I was like, "Billy Ray has been living with this for two years before I even came on board, so I'm going with him."

One of the many things I love about working with Ryan Murphy is that you're always thin-sliced in this business. You walk into a room and people want you to be how you look or how you're perceived or whatever it is in that 10 minutes that hey meet you. I think Ryan [Murphy] has an intuition that looks a little bit deeper and sees things that other people might not see in you - sometimes you might not even see in yourself - but that he knows are there and that he might want to get to grow and stretch with as an actor.

The last thing I want to do is having someone get behind a Montgomery Clift biopic, and then just do the first script that came out. Sometimes it takes a long time for these things to gestate. And I'm only going to do it if it's the right story that's told for the right reason, and that's relevant to this day and age, as much as it pays homage to who this man was. Should that happen during the time when I'm still young enough to play him, perfect. And if not, hopefully someone else will get to play him because I do think it's an incredible story.