Mother Teresa was asked what was the meaning of life, and she said to help other people, and I thought, ‘What a strange thing to say’ – but maybe it’s the right thing to say.
It’s really hard to copy another actor and be successful. In fact, that’s usually the reason people are not good, because they’re copying something they’ve seen, but, for some reason with their face and their body, it doesn’t work.
Acting is kind of difficult to intellectualize – it’s a far more visceral experience. It’s really hard to be able to think about and then employ these kind of esoteric notions of this person’s backstory and try to weave it in somehow. It’s just kind of impossible.
It’s a really unique acting opportunity to play two roles who are not only interacting with each other, but vastly different.
When you take on a role you try to do as much as possible beforehand to get your mind into it. Just to prepare because it’s a daunting prospect to go six months or whatever.
I don’t watch the movies I’ve been in. I try to stay as little aware of the final product as possible, because my job doesn’t really change.
Everybody feels like they need a photograph because we’re in a generation where, if you don’t document it, it didn’t occur. So you’ve got to stop and take a picture with everybody.
The truth is people are very nice. The other truth is, it’s very annoying to be constantly interrupted. I don’t love myself enough to want to share myself with everybody.
I think I prioritize other people’s opinions of me very highly, which is not necessarily a good thing – it’s a thing that causes a lot of anxiety.
A lot of times the character’s experience is not in accordance with the tone of the movie and it’s not really my job to account for the tone of the movie. That’s the director’s job.
When you’re on set you don’t realize the way something is going to look since you’re on the other side of the camera.
Working in the arts, you see people who come from terrible circumstances and who, for whatever reason, have incredible talent. But of course, with that great talent comes some guilt because, if you come from circumstances that don’t encourage it, it can be really confusing.
I give credence to the worst things somebody writes about me, and if somebody writes something nice, I think they’re wrong or false or lying or joking.
I tend to prefer the smaller movies because they shoot more efficiently and so you’re are able to maintain that momentum of the character a little more easily.
It’s a very strange experience to watch yourself in a movie anyway. I most frequently don’t do it, but if I was going to do it, I would do it in a private way, not at a public screening at a film festival, which is just an overwhelming experience.
Lies are for adults who are sad in their lives.
Because going through a hard life with someone else is better than going through an easy life alone.
But kids think differently than adults think. Adults have spent so many years thinking more and more like each other because the more you live with other people the less you think like yourself and the more you think like them. But kids are new people so we still think more normally.
And I wanted to ask her if she only took me around so that Dad would pay for her but I already knew the answer: Mom took me around because she needed me. Because going through a hard life with someone else is better than going through an easy life alone.
Every relationship has a kind of pattern, I guess, and maybe the pattern is more important than the stuff that makes up the pattern.
I thought it must have been scary to be an Apatosaurus because he just wanted to be nice but there was probably a lot of pressure to be mean because he was a dinosaur.