I wrote about wasting time, which I suppose is a part of the great human journey. We're supposed to wallow, to go through the desert without water for a long time so that when we finally drink it, we'll truly need it and we won't spill a drop. It's about being present.

I think Hollywood sees so many parts of America through a very narrow prism. The South is no exception. And those stereotypes, while sometimes true, are exaggerated for me to the point of boredom.

With a lot of the movies that I've done, they've been both dramas and comedies from Shanghai Noon to Billy Bob Thornton's second movie, Daddy and Them, to just a bunch of movies that I have done have been comic, and they're usually from a cynical kind of pessimistic point of view which is probably my sense of humor, and this is a part of myself in everybody that I play.

There is something beautiful and permanent in the world, and that is the love that a person can have for another human being.

The life of a character doesn't just exist between action and cut.

'The Portrait of Dorian Grey' beautifully articulates how the altruistic part of ourselves clashes with our essentially narcissistic state.

You can go to a history class with one teacher and want to stick a pencil in your throat, and then go to another teacher who is able to contextualize it or deliver the message in a way that you're riveted.