I love Cate Blanchett: she takes risks, but is still refind.

I was 13. And on my own for about 10 months, but those were long months. My stepdad wanted me out of his hair and tried to put me in a home, a hospital kind of place for kids with drug problems, which I absolutely did not belong in. So I left that place and struck out on my own...

I never started out trying to be an actor. That was not my passion, this was not my thing.

I was never nervous directing. Not once. I'm more nervous acting. I'm far more nervous on set, before I say my lines, than I ever have been, as a director.

I'm not really one of those people who goes and writes some big back story and agonizes over characters. I think you kind of can get it. For me personally, it's just kind of more instinctive. But I don't have kind of an acting background. I fell into it accidentally.

I did a cover for Rolling Stone the other day and it was a kind of crazy lack of outfit. I thought, "Oh, Lord. I'm never going to be Jane Austen in a film now!" 'Cause that's what I'd really like to do.

There's nothing wrong with being an agitator.