"One of my favorite films has always been Tootsie. I think I fell in love with New York and the romantic idea of being an actor from that movie. I saw it in a theater when I was really young and I don’t think I understood it all, but I remember people laughing so hard and I just knew I was watching a great movie. And all that stuff between Dustin Hoffman and Sydney Pollack is amazing. I revisit that movie a lot. I think, again it has that effect — it’s a very bittersweet movie, because it’s really funny but it also has those great sweet, honest moments. And it’s about a guy wearing a dress. I mean, it’s amazing that they pulled that movie off."

"Punch-Drunk Love is at the very top of the list. Like everybody else, I’m a huge fan of Paul Thomas Anderson. The journey that he took Adam Sandler on in that movie, starting as a guy who is very put-upon and all this kind of stuff, and then love came into his life through Emily Watson. Just to see that journey. There’s a great scene at the end when he just totally stands up to Philip Seymour Hoffman at his mattress store, and there’s that time when Emily’s in the car with him, and he grabs… I think it was a tire iron in the car and swings. It’s just such a great moment. And then that crying scene with the therapist in the closet. I mean, it was just perfection, that entire film, for me."

"I would say The Big Lebowski, because I’ve always felt like John Goodman should have gotten an Oscar for his performance in that movie. He’s perfect and brilliant. And it’s so weird and so funny, and takes all these turns. And we got to meet Phillip Seymour Hoffman and be like, “Brandt? Who the f— is that guy? He’s hilarious.” So, thanks for that, Coen brothers. It’s so weird. It’s so hard to make a movie with such extreme characters and keep it tonally so grounded. I don’t feel like it’s ever over the top, but all the performances are over the top, but it’s just so perfectly directed. Plus it makes me laugh, always, even though I’ve seen it so many times. God, really, I just love it. I think there’s something in it for everyone."

"All the Presidents Men. Alan Pakula. I lived in Washington, D.C. all throughout Watergate and my mother worked for the government so she was hyper-aware of Nixon and all of this. The Watergate [Hotel] was a bike ride away from my home. It was just a building in a series of buildings that you drove by all the time. And the Howard Johnson’s where the plumbers all had their dinner before break-in? I used to eat at that Howard Johnson’s. This was a local story for me. The Woodward and Bernstein book is a read and a half, and I’ve watched that film I don’t know how many times — it is just perfect. I watched it like 10 days ago. I watched it on the Drake Passage on my way to the Antarctic peninsula. That’s the last time I saw it, like three weeks ago. It was then as it is now — a beautiful piece of work. It’s suspenseful. Again, there’s Hoffman. I guess I come off as some massive Hoffman fan. It’s merely coincidence, although I do think he’s great. Him and Redford together are just amazing. And again you see the genius of Hoffman. You see just how ready-to-go Robert Redford is as an actor. Handsome, leading guy, believable as hell. And that whole cast — I just love seeing older people in films who don’t necessarily look good, but they’re good actors. And that the entire weather-beaten, hard-chewed staff at the post that were cast in that film. They sit around and have those meetings, “Well screw that; what d’you got?” They’re just these tough newsmen, and I love it. They took down Nixon, these two young guys. I hung out with Bernstein; he’s just a true maniac. It’s an honor to hang out with him. I said, “Man, it’s an honor to meet you.” And he said, “I’m gonna tell my son that and boy, he’s gonna respect me now.” [Laughing] I’m like, “Yeah, right!” It speaks of a huge moment in American history when every American now had proof that you cannot trust your government, that you’d be stupid to trust the government. Like yes, vote. Elect these people. But you gotta keep a very Jeffersonian jaundiced eye on every politician: the ones you voted for, the ones you voted against, the ones you say you like. As Gore Vidal said, by the time anyone gets to the Oval Office, they’ve been bought and sold at least ten times. And All the President’s Men is a case study of that. Hal Holbrook’s character, you find out 30 years later, that dude did exist. It was Deep Throat. That was a real guy. And the fact that these little clandestine meetings happened in a place I may have well pumped my skateboard by makes that film very relevant to me."