I've been fortunate to work with several actors and directors who I look up to, and learned from each of them.

I think control is a two-way street; sometimes people want to control things to keep them safe if they are afraid of life.

George C. Scott, man, was a powerful dude.

There's that thing that if you want to have any kind of lasting love, I think you have to love the whole person and not just the parts of them that you choose.

Homeless people really upset me when I was little. A lot of kids have this reaction, but I would get really worried or sad or concerned or cry.

I guess sometimes fear is a good thing. It's a really good motivator.

'Little Miss Sunshine' was really important to me.

With somebody like Harrison Ford, they're so commanding and confident, and you know, he does have a certain power or charisma, and those are things that are sort of ineffable.

There are maybe 100 actors I look up to, but my first two favourite actors were Dustin Hoffman and Jack Nicholson.

I like characters that make me feel challenged and sort of inspired.

On 'There Will Be Blood,' I was cast at the last minute. I had 3 and a half to 4 days to get ready for the first day. I just went for it, threw myself in there and gave it everything I had. That was just guts and instinct, not a lot of preparation.

I'm a sucker for period pieces. There is always great opportunity for research and to delude yourself into feeling like you are in a different time and place.

My first paying job might have been doing a play, actually. My mom paid me to dress up as a flounder at my sister's 'Little Mermaid' - themed birthday party when I was little.

There's a lot of people that I would love to work with. There's a lot of different kinds of parts I wanna play. As your career progresses, you hope that you get some more opportunity or some more choice.

I love cereal. I eat several bowls a day, mostly a few late at night.

I'd always been fascinated by people who allow themselves to be so rude and irritated and foul-mouthed and hostile, but usually you can sense there's something vulnerable beneath them - a shield they use to protect that vulnerable side. Finally, when they expose that soft spot, it's kind of touching.

I'd love to do a really broad comedy at some point.

I go down to the dive bar around the corner when I go out. I don't go to the showbiz parties.

To be called a genius at 17 or 18 years old can sometimes cause arrested development.

I grew up in Manhattan, and now I live in Brooklyn.

One of my favorite things I read was John Steinbeck's journals while he was writing 'East of Eden,' which was so cool.

As people, no matter what we are doing, your whole body is living and breathing.

In life, you have to keep certain parts of yourself in check because you want to be a decent human being. But one of the guilty pleasures of acting is that sometimes you get to let a little something out that you don't in life because it's not right.

New York is kind of a mythological city in may ways.