I'm a little bit of a glutton for punishment, especially when it comes to work. I don't mind a bit of suffering. I think it's in suffering that we realize our best selves.

That's probably the biggest secret of acting: If the actor believes it themselves, they can make you believe it.

I'm very old-school. I like a director to direct me. I like to be the actor. I'm not particularly fond of the hybrid writer-director, or actor-director. Writers, directors, actors are all such very different people. I think it's unusual that two of those people are in one human.

I was really not familiar at all with Edward Snowden. I like to get that right out of the way and really learned most of what I know from Oliver's [Stones] script.

It becomes more and more popular to call actors who play characters "character actors." But I've always been somebody who is much more invested in who I am playing than how they look.

I am a smoker, I'm ashamed to say. I had given it up for many years, then picked it up again. It's a horrible habit. I struggle with myself all the time. And I love to smoke.

I definitely consider myself a Method actor, because of my training. I might dispute what people consider a Method actor to be. For my money, a Method actor is an actor who has a technique. That has a method. And not one method, but whatever might be required. So a Method actor is always learning.