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I take the responsibility of choosing seriously because it becomes an indelible part of your body of work. Something has to sing to me.
There was something about being in front of audiences when I was in elementary school plays that gave me a thrill. It was like the rush you get from a roller coaster drop.
Recently, there's been more of a readiness to cast me without a fight, which is nice, although it means I have to be more selective now.
I hate it when people use sex as a weapon against the people who are engaging in it. It's so hypocritical.
I wanted to try something that I was afraid of. I'd always been afraid of the horror genre, even as an audience member.
I had started off, before I ever got an acting job, working at Robert De Niro's Tribeca Productions as a reader. I was always interested in that side of the camera.
Acting is doing, because everything you say or do is some kind of an action, some kind of a verb. You're always connected to the other person through some kind of action.
I get to try and be a man.
Once you've found something you know how to do, it makes you feel you don't have to be intimidated by someone.
I talked to a porn actress in preparation for the film and the amazing thing I got from her was her sense of happiness and pride in what she does.
I was associate producer of the first film I was ever in, Amongst Friends.
I'll talk to myself out loud a lot.
I hope that doing truthful portrayals of people in a variety of circumstances gives people a kind of subterranean link to those characters.
I'm doing things that are more artistic again, more close to the material that I love. I don't disparage those things that I did. They're just not as much reflective of who I am.
I'd never done anything this far back in history. The earliest I've ever done was the 19th century. I actually did play a boy twice before.
I did H.M.S. Pinafore in grade school.
I could have seen myself going into academia, but I don't love it; I just like it.
My major in college was Chinese Studies. It was very intentional.
When I was 5, my mother threw a party, and a friend and I wrote and performed a play called The Dutch Doll.
I want my life to effect the balance to the positive.
I went to the museum's 18th-century room and saw the wild poses that the men would take. I threw some of them into the characterization just because they were fun.
It was an early accolade that I greatly appreciated and did not expect. People may not have felt I was capable of doing characters that were not like the other characters I had played, had I not won the award.
I try to become more humble and more myself with every year. There was a while when I got famous where I was so confused and my head was spinning.
I was offered one of the roles in a big project that shall remain nameless. I thought the whole thing encouraged violent sex crimes toward women. It made horrible, ghastly rape violence seem sexy. I just didn't want to sign my name to it.
Sometimes I feel limited by people's perceptions of what I can and cannot do, or what I do or don't look like.
I had a Christian upbringing - it was all about sin and guilt. I was very happy just kissing people. I was like the make-out queen - not even second base.
I don't think you can judge Linda when you see her in Mighty Aphrodite.
When I went back to Harvard, I just focused on school. My parents broke up that year. It was very traumatic for me.
I really didn't know how to be cool. I studied ballet from the age of 7 to 14, but I wasn't a quick study. I felt so self-conscious. I was taller than everyone by a foot.
I've wanted to work with Yun-Fat because I have been a great fan of his Hong Kong films. I'm very drawn to filmmakers from Asia, because I want to work over there.
It was more of an experiment, walking into a different genre, rather than something that was close to me.
We all struggle with our failure to communicate and our failure to reach beyond fear to love people.
I wanted to do something far from my intellectual and physical home, so I went to live in Beijing for eight months and took Mandarin Chinese.
I loved the Chinese people, and it was fascinating to live in an oppressive society. The whole thing made me feel that I was able to cope.
The Oscars have become such a big deal these days that it's just used as adjective.
You cannot let the head put the brakes on too much of the runaway horses of the emotional instrument, but you also can't let them go out of control or become self-indulgent.
When I was younger I don't think I had a lot of self-confidence without the carapace of a character around me.
I made myself walk around in character in a variety of venues in New York. I carried on a two-hour conversation as her, and people were convinced.
My whole thing is characterization. I like playing separate people; it's never about one quality.
I'd do a Romy and Michele 2. I'd be happy to do that.
I had been looking for a New York apartment, but I said, Why not give LA a go?
I assume that if people get to know me, they'll like me. If they don't, it's not my problem.
Maybe there's a stage in people's careers where they stop going with the director's choice. I haven't reached that point yet.
Acting is what happens on the way.
There are all kinds of other things I could do, things I would probably like, but only acting would give me emotional fulfillment.
I have learned to pare down what I do and still be effective and strong in a role.
Performing may not be the most effective means to help the world, but if it can make people open their eyes a little toward fundamental humanity, then I guess I'm affecting that.
Being is like pretending.
Now that I've got some films under my belt, I have the courage of my convictions regarding acting. It gives me a leg to stand on.
I always feel I can play a role-just give me the time to do the preparation and I'll be it.
The name game is frustrating. Agents will say, They love you, but they're going to offer it to Julia Roberts first.
You always have to find the driving issues within the person. Everything else stems from that core.
You have to come in at the right point for the character at the top of the scene.
My father taught me how to substitute realities.
My mother and father's upbringing made me very conscious of trying not to hurt other people.
I have a hard time getting motivated to do something that seems like a career move. I've gotten into vague trouble with my agents for turning down work that I thought was exploitative.
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