My role models were always the Pacinos and the Oldmans, the guys who get dirty with their characters, and I arrived in L.A. during the big boom of 'Dawson's Creek.' I was getting cast as the boy next door, or the friend of the jock. I thought, 'Did I really have to do all that studying?'

The craft of putting together a performance on film or television is incredibly intricate; you’re putting together a story that is completely out of order, that you have to make some sense of, that you have to keep some coherence to the story, to the character.

I’m not going to lie. I would definitely steal stuff from set.

For me as an actor because I’ve been at it so long, it becomes much harder to watch movies because you really see the seams of everything.

We’ve been talking about Lorde like crazy! She’s amazing!

Like I said, when all of that goes away and you just completely lose yourself in the fantasy of it, then that’s usually when I walk out of the theatre or turn off the television and just go: “That was brilliant!”

Anytime anybody does anything – unless it’s in the realm of the obviously awful, which is fun too in a different way – it is in many ways a success.

I think you kind of hope for people gush over movies, but I think the opposite is great sometimes, too. I’d rather have a movie that you’re angry about and that you’re talking about the next day, than something you forget about when the popcorn goes into the trash.

Maybe that’s partly why I’m an actor, I’m a fairly empathetic, emotional person, so I get very, very involved when it’s really, really great when I’m watching – so it takes me a second to click back into reality again.

My father is a college professor and that’s about the extent of my college experience. I’m sort of a professional student forever. I think just as human beings we always have a student who is alive in us and is waiting to pop up and make us feel like we are 16 years-old again.