"Paul Thomas Anderson — what a fantastic director. These are all directors that I would love to work with, you know. I doubt any of them could give a sh*t. [laughs.] Boogie Nights. Pretty epic. It just captured that era so brilliantly. Mark Wahlberg, man — great role. Julianne Moore, Philip Seymour Hoffman — they just blow me away. I could watch it again and again. Great movie."

"I’ll start with 25th Hour, the Spike Lee movie. It was actually written by David Benioff, who writes Game of Thrones. It was my favorite movie before I met David, and when I found out that he had written it, I proceeded to — when drunk in a bar once — to give him my version of the Edward Norton monologue that happens during the movie. Really embarrassing. I cringe to this day that I did that and gave him my rendition of it. It’s just an amazing movie. I love Edward Norton, I love Philip Seymour Hoffman in it, Barry Pepper, you know. It’s a fantastic movie."

"My favorite movie is The Talented Mr. Ripley. “Tommy, Tommy, Tommy, Tommy — Tommy.” Philip Seymour Hoffman was crazy. Jude Law was just great. I don’t like what he did, but it was just the whole running-around-Europe-loving-jazz [thing]. That was very interesting to me. He didn’t want to do his father’s business. He just wanted to love jazz. He was free enough to do it and be content. I think Matt Damon was very interesting. Just to be so conniving and to steal identities and money. Jude Law was so naive for a while and then he realized Damon was a moocher. It was kind of weird how quickly someone could be deceived when they’re caught up in their own world."

"The Big Lebowski. Jeff Bridges – I almost put Starman down, too, but I really think I kind of don’t remember the movie so much because I haven’t seen it in so many years – but I love Jeff Bridges, and I love the movie he just did. What was it called? Crazy Heart, he’s great in that. But, I mean, there’s something about The Big Lebowski and that combination with the Coen brothers sensibility, which, he nailed that down. I don’t know exactly what you’d even call that, but brilliant. I loved his performance in that, and I loved John Goodman, and I loved Steve Buscemi. And you know who else was great in that, was Philip Seymour Hoffman. He was really good in that movie, too. Yeah, great, great, great fan of that movie."

"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 think a lot about Martin Scorsese and how heavily influenced Paul Thomas Anderson was by him. I feel like he learned so much from Scorsese in Boogie Nights, and so I feel like picking Boogie Nights is somewhat accounting for my Martin Scorsese love. But I’m also being very honest about a movie that I can watch over and over. Just the epic nature and the grandness of it, and some of the shots and the style of it, and the music — my God, the way he uses music — and that great shot where somebody jumps into the pool and you hear the muffled soundtrack. It’s brilliant. I never get sick of watching it. And the acting is just some of my favorite actors at the top of their game. I love doing impressions and one of my earliest impressions of an actor was Philip Seymour Hoffman in that movie, when he’s saying how much he loves the name and he’s chewing on the pen."