Acting is a business and a political act and a craft, but I also feel like it's a service - specifically, for a military audience.
I don't have cable. I just never watched a lot of TV.
Emphasis in the Marine Corps isn't on talking about your feelings.
I think it's possible to be free in a big production. It's the eye of the director and the actor and the story.
I feel like I'll never get over red carpets. They're so bizarre and awkward.
I was born in California. When I was six, we moved to a small town in northern Indiana called Mishawaka.
For me, becoming a man had a lot to do with learning communication, and I learned about that by acting.
Through theater and acting school, I found a way to articulate myself.
At the end of whatever we're doing, I always feel like I want to go back and start over again because now I have a better sense of what it is. I feel that with everything. Like, if you're doing like a long run of a play and you're doing it seven shows a week, at the end of it, I want to go back and start from the beginning.
I actually run a non-profit where one of the main objectives is to branch out and get a new audience for the theater. Just because the writing is so good and nothing is more effective than seeing something live and happening right in front of your face, so I definitely want to continue to pursue that.
It's hard to kill that father-son bond.
The only thing I know that makes me feel comfortable is to know as much as I can. Not like what the shots are going to be, but knowing enough about my character that I can forget those things. And more specifically, my lines. I have to know my lines. I have to know something really well, so I can forget it when we're doing it. And there is comfort in knowing, "Okay, there's not another stone that I could have overturned."
Girls' feels very active and stirring a conversation and controversial, and you can't really ask for more as an actor.
I'm conflicted with theater in the city because you want to reach a diverse audience, and that audience doesn't typically go to the theater.
The Marine Corps is some of the best acting training you could have. Having that responsibility for people's lives, suddenly time becomes a really valuable commodity and you want to make the most of it. And for acting, you just have to do the work, just keep doing it.
It was very clear to me I wanted to be an actor when I got out into civilian life.
Acting, to me, has been many things: It's a business, and it's a craft, and it's a political act - it's whatever adjective is most applicable.
I originally passed on 'Girls' because I thought TV was evil.
Juilliard definitely emphasizes the theater. They don't train - at all really - for film acting. It's mostly process-oriented, pretty much for the stage.
If I'm not doing something or working on something, I literally just sit in the room and think, which I don't think is productive. I won't go outside for days.
I'm not an acting monk or anything. I'm not, like, the most well-adjusted actor.
In the military, you learn the essence of people. You see so many examples of self-sacrifice and moral courage. In the rest of life you don't get that many opportunities to be sure of your friends.
I mean, I did plays in high school, but I was convinced you couldn't make a living doing it.
I think people are willing to take more of a risk on an indie film, about character, etc...but at the same time, when I work on projects that are substantially bigger, in a way they do feel small. Even though the catering is way better and we actually have someone shooting with real film.... The budgets are bigger but the story still feels small, like an indie film.
I loved being in the Marine Corps, I loved my job in the Marine Corps, and I loved the people I served with. It's one of the best things I've had a chance to do.
Something I learned in the Marine Corps that I've applied to acting is, one, taking direction, and then working with a group of people to accomplish a mission and knowing your role within that team.
I have a control problem. I hate the feeling of not being in control.
I don't understand technology, and I'm very scared of it.
Yeah, September 11 happened and all my friends were like, 'Let's join the military!' and I was the only one who actually did.
What is important is to maintain integrity of the story, of the character, of the movie, even if it's a big production.
I used to eat a whole chicken every day, for lunch. I did that for four years. But it got tiring - go to the store, buy it, eat it. It’s a mess.
Acting is really about having the courage to fail in front of people.
I always found something strangely paternal about the director-actor relationship. Actors want so much approval.
I always think back to the original movies and to those quieter moments where Luke is out in A New Hope, and there are the two suns setting. It is the equivalent, basically, of a farm boy dying to get out of his small town and do something bigger. It's those kinds of universal themes that ground this whole thing in space.
