I've spent enough time with soldiers to know that once they get to know you and they loosen up and become themselves, they are some of the biggest hams and most charismatic, cocky, fun, humorous guys I've ever met.

One of the challenges assembling the film was that gun fight went on for three and a half hours and we obviously couldn't spend three and a half hours of the film with one gun fight. It was trying to figure out the balance of how much an audience could take before they either became repulsed or desensitized or bored or just overwhelmed.

I've had great success and I've had catastrophic failure. It's really how you handle the rough stuff that defines you, I think.

I'm a huge fan of the Navy. My father was a Naval historian, and I've been studying Naval battles forever.

I somewhere along the way became fascinated with exploring characters who are willing to put themselves into violent situations, whether it's football, hockey, boxing, being a cop, being a soldier. There's not a lot of people who are willing to put themselves into those situations.

You know to me, being a good actor, the most important quality is you've got to love to play, and to just be open to anything.

There's no hidden agenda, no political agenda [in Patriots Day]. The only politics we were really talking about was the politics of community, the politics of social love.