As an actor, if I show up late somewhere or I say something that’s eccentric, it’s totally acceptable – not only that, it’s lauded in some perverse way.
I always think the second worst thing in the world is to go on stage at night, and the first worst thing in the world is sitting at home at night. For me, it’s scarier to not be doing it than doing it.
In New York, everybody is their own celebrity, so they’re not so interested in other people.
If you look at the movies that come out, most of them are bad, so it’s not as if achieving some level of success means you get offered better roles, because frankly they don’t seem to exist.
I write all the time because I’m lonely. When you’re acting, you’re working every day all day. But then you have long amounts of time off.
I purposefully isolate myself from anything that has to do with any press. I don’t read any press about myself.
Nothing is harder than working with an actor who doesn’t take it seriously or show up in the same way that you are.
If you went to Harvard Medical School, chances are you’ll be a doctor at some place. There’s a career trajectory. Acting, there’s nothing. It’s constantly trying to procure jobs – it’s very disconcerting.
My job when I’m acting in a movie is very limited to playing a role. I’m not evaluating somebody. I’m only evaluating them insofar as they’re interacting with me, but I’m not evaluating their skill set and I don’t watch the movies, so I’m not aware of the way they’re putting things together.
People think, ‘You’re an actor, you can afford clothes,’ but I just try to take the clothes from the movie, which makes the selecting of film projects that much more difficult, because you try to play characters that might wear something you’d want to wear.
When you take on a role, even if the character is somebody that you are dissimilar to, you have to identify with the role and look for an emotional connection even if there is not a biographical one.
I meet people who are in movies, and the stuff that they write is terrible, but nobody tells them that because they’re famous. So I worry that my stuff might be like that, too.
Look, I don’t have a Facebook page because I have little interest in hearing myself talk about myself any further than I already do in interviews or putting any more about myself online than there already is. But if I wasn’t in this position, I’m sure I would use it every day.
I feel equal parts lucky and scared anytime I get a job.
I feel very guilty doing magic because you’re deceiving somebody.
I felt self-conscious going out in the street prior to ever even being in a movie. That’s just me.
I grew up in a secular suburban Jewish household where we only observed the religion on very specific times like a funeral or a Bar Mitzvah.
I grew up in Queens and New Jersey. I started doing children’s theater when I was seven to get out of school because I didn’t fit in.
I had great difficulty in school interacting with others, and I took refuge in the contrived setting of play acting, which is what I still do.
I have a job that requires me to be in the public eye in the way that makes me extra careful about sharing information.