“I’m an actor. I can do whatever I want. As an actor, not everything has to be the most obvious choice. And sometimes, the best thing you can do is to defy expectations.”

I’m not really afraid of the dark, except if I’m walking. The thing that scares me the most is the possibility of walking into a wall and busting my lip.

When people believe in you, you can do miraculous things.

When I was a child actor, I had the fear that I was going to be cast as the tree.

I’m going to do my best to channel the character on a spiritual level.

The films that I do are deep, introspective, brooding roles that you’re in this heavy headspace all the time.

I envision the future sunny and with love, harmony and oneness. I think Hollywood is changing.

I’ve directed independent film.

My mom used to say that I became a fighter and a scrapper and a tough guy to protect who I am at my core.

If you think about my filmography, I have never done a movie that a kid could go see, except for Iron Giant, and I’m not even on the screen.

Show me how you drive and I’ll show you who you are.

My gut feeling about sequels is that they should be premeditated: You should try to write a trilogy first or at least sketch out a trilogy if you have any faith in your film.

Unfortunately, in Hollywood, there are those directors that have some contempt for actors. We’ve all experienced that, in one way or another.

Rated R movies are few and far between, nowadays. We’re all seeing less and less rated R movies, and less and less of them are being made.

I grew up the son of an acting teacher but I’ve never been really good at articulating what that process is. It was always a bit more internal.

I shaved my head about 15 years ago and the first time I shaved it, I started running my hand through my hair and it was very therapeutic.

A transvestite spends her entire life trying to look as feminine as possible and I have clearly spent mine celebrating my masculinity.

It’s cruel to compare two actors working with two different filmmakers on two different characters.

You have to trust your instincts. There is a moment when an actor has it, and he knows it.

Don Siegel last advice to me was ‘Don’t short yourself.’ He said the tendency is when an actor’s directing is to kind of you want to work on everybody else but you’re going to short yourself. He said, take the time to do a good job with yourself so that you’re satisfied with it.

A star on a movie set is like a time bomb. That bomb has got to be defused so people can approach it without fear.

In other words, I wouldn’t like to be an actor if I could only be real. I like to get wild, behaviourally wild, and it’s crazy to think of any form where it’s just one way.

Frankly, I got into the movies because I like the movies a lot.

I want to be an actor, I am just not very comfortable talking about myself.

I have no idea what I’m doing, and that’s kind of how I love it.