It’s a struggle for me to watch things I’ve been in because I’m just distracted and self-critical.
I think there’s nothing more wonderful than using fiction to reflect real-world cultural ideas.
I find people who want to help other people to be the most interesting. I come from a family of teachers, and my friends are teachers, often times in very difficult school situations.
I can’t watch myself in interviews. I feel like I look like a wreck. My mom is always calling me and going, ‘Stop fidgeting,’ and it’s like, ‘You have no idea what it’s like, Mom.’
I’m hardly the most notable person in ‘Zombieland.’ The other actors in it are way more famous than I am.
If I get no sleep the night before a show, I feel that performance is the best one.
To criticize Facebook is to criticize the telephone.
I know some amazing actors who are not mortified every moment of the day, so my feeling is that maybe you don’t have to be a wreck to be good.
I tend to be pessimistic about everything: If things seem to be going good, I’m worried that it’s going to end; if things are bad, then I’m worried that it’s going to be permanent. It’s not a very comfortable attitude to have all the time.
I’m kind of shocked any time somebody hires me and even more shocked any time somebody hires me to play a character like Lex Luthor, which I only knew from the public consciousness of him being a bald, brooding villain who is older than me.
I prefer playing characters that are going through turmoil. Most movie characters are just in service to the story.
First rule of magic? Always be the smartest guy in the room.
I view myself in the narrowest possible terms, but I don’t watch anything I’ve been in, and I don’t read reviews or analysis of movies I’ve been in, or my plays.
The joy of acting for me is to be able to experience emotions in a safe environment. You can’t scream and cry in the street because everybody will look. If you do it on a movie set, you get applauded.
I write plays, and I have a musical that’s starting to get produced now. That’s what I would love to do, but it’s so hard. The only reason people are reading my plays and musicals is because I’m in movies.
If you’re afraid of everything out there, you quit going out there.
When you’re acting in a movie, you never consider the reception of it. It’s impossible to predict how something will be received. Even if you think it’s the greatest thing in the world, other people might not like it. Or agree with it.
I often think if you have time to sit around the house feeling bad for yourself, you have time to tutor a child. I’m guilty of that exact thing. I will spend more time sitting around feeling bad for myself than actually helping somebody.
Who walks around proud of things they’ve done? That’s an obnoxious quality.
The only way to be turned off to being famous is to be famous.