In some way, the relationship between a director and an actor is personal.

I always wanted to entertain. When I was six, a scrawny, scrawny kid, Id get in my red speedo and do muscle moves. I actually thought I was muscular. I didnt know everyone was laughing at me.

You know how sometimes department stores have these things where, if you win, you get 10 minutes to go in and take anything you want from the store? That's basically what I'm doing. I'm running in and just trying to grab as many characters as possible before they pull the plug on me.

I grew up in a family of strong women and I owe any capacity I have to understand women to my mother and big sister. They taught me to respect women in a way where I've always felt a strong emotional connection to women, which has also helped me in the way I approach my work as an actor.

It was more important to me to understand what its like to be this Jewish kid who felt he was so different at such a young age. I feel the story is about a kid who came to hate through love, so I felt I had to learn why he loved this thing so much that he also apparently hated it.

I never was that boy who loved gangster films, but when I was growing up, I was obsessed with the detective Dick Tracy. It was one of my favourite movies as a kid, and he really inspired me. I would have loved to be part of that golden age of Hollywood in the 1940s. It made me want to become an actor.

For me, I sort of felt like it was kind of a fairytale... but an interesting one. I don't know of anybody who has had a romance quite like this, but I certainly know people who have stuck it out.