“You understand what good directing is, you can identify it pretty easily.”

Growing up in Hawaii, the ocean is where I’m most at home. When I’m away from it and landlocked I long for the ocean. There’s something about it, I’m at peace with it.

I grew up on movie sets, getting to see storytelling happen up close.

Romantic dramas? I love The Notebook. Titanic was great. Classic.

Really I’m a fan of any movie, whether it’s suspense, action, or comedy, anything that has a good story.

I normally go-to whiskey on the rocks. Or a beer. Or with dinner, a glass of white wine.

I couldn’t say a specific thing, but the media is not really held to high standards anymore.

If I’m gonna play a character in a movie or if I want to be the lead of a film, you wanna carry the guy, you wanna get the girl, you wanna save the day or the world.

My dad is really old school: Whatever you do, just be the best at it. He didn’t really care if I was a plumber or a roofer. It didn’t matter what I did. He said, Go out and find out what you like to do, and be the best at it.

I just do what Clint Eastwood does: Keep moving forward. You can’t look back or think about that kind of stuff too much. You just keep making movies; hopefully you make some good ones.

Be the leads of big films that are entertaining and maybe then cross over to stuff that moves people and has a little bit more texture to it.

I’m just looking to be in the best movies possible and do the best work possible and try to become a better actor and make better movies.

For movies like The Longest Ride, I got to hang out with cowboys at rodeos and learned how to ride a bull, essentially.

Keep your head down, work hard, and don’t ever believe your own hype, because… you just keep working.

It would be creepy if you knew my home address.

Oliver Stone. Is that not enough?

Sometimes people just show up, which is kind of scary. And then you are like, ‘Okay guy… got to leave’.

I only direct in self-defense.

You will be paid in direct proportion to the value you create in the marketplace.

You can act in five, six, or seven films in the time it takes to direct one film.

Our humanity rests upon a series of learned behaviors, woven together into patterns that are infinitely fragile and never directly inherited.

Having been an actor and a writer for so long – 20 years or so – I felt that it would be daft to go to one’s grave without having directed. It’s a natural extension of writing and acting, and so I knew it would happen one day.

Love in all its subtleties is nothing more, and nothing less, than the more or less direct trace marked on the heart of the element by the psychical convergence of the universe upon itself.

Anybody can direct, but there are only eleven good writers.

All genuine knowledge originates in direct experience.