I got into film acting because I wanted to be James Dean. We lost him at a very young age - he was only 24 - but I’m 51 going on 52, so there's only so many times you can act like James Dean. I had to find new ways of expressing myself that kept me fascinated with film performance.

I don't want you to think that I'm up late reading a stack of Spider-Man comics and eating a tray of lemon cookies while sucking my thumb. I'm not doing that. But I am loyal to the influences of my childhood.

When you start a movie, it's not like other kinds of work that you have when you know your boss for years or colleagues for years. You're meeting everyone, mostly, for the first time. You have to get comfortable with those people so you can perform, because the first thing that is going to shut you down is any kind of anxiety.

When I'm in England, I know I'm a visitor, but being a white man in England with ancestry that's German and Italian, I have a history with the Romans and the Saxons. I feel some connection and ancestry here, as weird as that sounds.

I'm not afraid to play ugly - look at 'Adaptation.' I looked like a turd that a cat had coughed up.

My father always used to say to me, it doesn’t matter what the profession is, but if they’re the best in their field, it will always be fascinating to watch.

People often say that you should never work with child actors. I think that's all wrong. Children have not had the imagination kicked out of them by life experience and adulthood. So, they still are very much alive with that kind of magical thinking which enables an actor to believe they're in these circumstances and make them real to you.