I talked with [ Blair Macon] a lot. I always like to come up with it - sometimes the filmmaker is not into it at all.

I feel like any actor should always be thinking about how to serve the story. The thing to be cautious of is trying to make too much of your "moment," or whatever. The story is a lot bigger than you, and you're there to help it along. The thing to think about is whether what you're doing is true to the moment and where the story's going, rather than going, "Here are my scenes. What can I try and do to make the most of them?"

There's not much of a follow-your-dreams kind of vibe in New Zealand or my family.

Even just reading "I Don't Feel at Home in This World Anymore,"I got a sense of the world and the story [Macon Blair] wanted to tell. And then I had a meeting with him and understood how he likes to work. I really trusted him from the beginning.

It's always nice for me to get to explore somebody who's feeling that and then does something with it and takes it in a different direction or does something with it. It feels very powerful. It helps me with my own.

It's good to feel tired at the end of the day. It's not often as an actor that you're like, "Oof. Ow. I feel like I've been out working."

I always like [while filming] to have a sense of what led this person to this point.