I think so much of a director's job is just to convince you that what you're doing is worthwhile. "Yes, this does mean something, we're not just messing around." Even though at the end of the day it's a film. But at the time it's something else. I don't feel like I'm making a film, I'm confronting things in myself. I don't know what it is. So if someone is enthusiastic enough to convince you that it's important it's kind of magical.

Sometimes just when I say hello the right way, I'm like, 'Whoa, I'm so cool.'

I go through fan mail myself, but I think I might get them censored, because I'm always expecting to get the one thing that says, 'I know where you live and I'm going to kill you!' I'm always expecting that to come, but it never seems to arrive. I never get any negative mail, so someone must be censoring them.

I was really unfit last year, so I worked out for a long time, then spent time by myself in Oregon. For about two months the only person I saw was my trainer. Every day I did a lot of running and I just didn’t want to talk to anyone for two months. So when I started talking again, it was like you would communicate wrongly, like you wouldn’t really remember how to speak. That was one of the key things as well as just reading the book, reading the script a million times, just figuring things out.

My dad said to me the other day, I really am an artistic person. I was shocked as I never saw him as a creative. I think me and my sisters are living out that side of him as my sister is another creative person, she's a songwriter.

I went to do my first big movie when I was 17. I was in South Africa for three and half months, and I was by myself.

When something or someone is hyped and you're put on the forefront of a lot of things, people want to tear you down. That's kind of scary, especially when you're not really putting yourself out there.