"To Kill a Mockingbird is way up there, but that’s also like an On the Waterfront kind of classic movie, also with a personal journey set against a bigger social issue — racism — but I’m going to go instead with Ordinary People, directed by Robert Redford with Mary Tyler Moore, Timothy Hutton who won an Oscar — one of the youngest Oscar winners I think — Donald Sutherland, and Judd Hirsch playing the psychiatrist."

"Robert Altman turns his multilevel, multidimensional auteur’s eye on the short stories of Raymond Carver, and creates one grim portrayal of Los Angeles culture that will leave you breathless. Many of the stories that make up Short Cuts could have spun off into TV series, so well drawn are the characters. Released after Altman’s smash hit The Player, Short Cuts came across as a disappointment, but after a recent viewing, I feel Short Cuts to be the superior and more lasting success. A killer cast that never gets in the way of the material has to be an all-time favorite of mine. With Tim Robbins, Julianne Moore, Robert Downey, Jack Lemmon, and Jennifer Jason Leigh."

"Those performances. Timothy Hutton’s performance in that is probably the most directly inspiring to me, and that’s a young guy at the top of his game, emotionally raw, and brings everything that a young actor could want in a performance. I feel that that film is the most heart-wrenching and true portrait of a family maybe I’ve ever seen. To describe it well would reveal too much. That’s what’s brilliant about it. Everyone should watch it and watch Mary Tyler Moore with Timothy Hutton and Judd Hirsch. I can’t believe it. I just can’t believe that movie. It seems like such a simple concept, and yet Robert Redford kills it. The scene that always gets me, hits me so hard, is a small scene that not many people would say they love. Most say the big breakdown scene with Judd Hirsh. For me, it’s the scene where Timothy Hutton has been going to Judd Hirsch for a little bit, and he’s opening up. It’s such a journey of what it means to be vulnerable and the importance of vulnerability in your own family, especially after trauma. My character in The Cat and the Moon is very much inspired by Timothy Hutton’s character in Ordinary People. His journey of being so closed off and edgy to cracking open into this well of unmined emotion. Particularly the scene where he and Donald Sutherland, who’s amazing as well, are decorating the tree — ugh, the Christmas tree. It’s such a sweet scene. Mary Tyler Moore comes home, and she’s got this cold, dark look on her face. I’ll never get over her facial expressions in that movie. What she’s thinking versus what she’s putting on the surface is the most genius magic trick. It’s the most exhilarating thing ever. That movie is the best."

"This one’s going to make you — well, I don’t know what you’re going to say to this, but Ordinary People, the Robert Redford film with Timothy Hutton, and Mary Tyler Moore, Donald Sutherland, [has] got to be one of the most emotional films for me, just seeing the middle upper class being stripped of the veneer and seeing the dysfunction within. That film really captures that more than any other, I think, and certainly of that time, it was such a dangerous statement for Robert Redford to be making in a film like that. Every time I watch that film — and I must have seen it over 100 times — I weep. And Mary Tyler Moore’s performance in that film, I’m telling you, man, growing up in LA, I knew women like her… That was my friends’ mothers, without a doubt. It’s so simple and it’s just beautiful story telling. Judd Hirsch as the therapist and the relationship he creates with Timothy Hutton in that film is pretty special. I feel that if that film doesn’t touch you on some level, that you’re not human. Looking back at it now, it may seem like a very after-school-special choice, but if you really visit that film again, it holds up, man. It’s pretty compelling. You got to see that, man, on a Sunday when it’s a little rainy out there. I don’t know if you have a boyfriend, or a girlfriend, but whoever that is, sit with them, put that on. I’m telling you, dude. It’s like… How do I put it? It’s like The Notebook for our generation, or my generation, you know?"

"A Man For All Seasons is basically porn for people who love dialogue. Paul Scofield’s brilliant performance. Robert Shaw’s equally brilliant performance as Henry the VII. It’s always appealed to me. I was 13 years old the first time I saw it. Absolutely fell in love with it because it’s wall-to-wall language with compelling performances. And [it’s] about something to me, in terms that I was raised Catholic. So Thomas Moore’s decision to not sign the oath of succession appealed to me as I was growing up because this is a dude who’s martyred for his beliefs and whatnot. And people will always compare that movie to The Crucible for some reason. But I never felt the same connection to The Crucible because in that instance John Procter is just going to great lengths to try to keep his name. Whereas Thomas Moore went to great lengths to keep, what he felt was his soul, intact. By taking that oath it would’ve been selling out on his soul, it would’ve been lying. He couldn’t do it and I always found that insanely admirable and the life one wants to emulate to some degree, without being crazy Catholic at the same time."