"Written by my other favorite Irish writer, this book couldn’t be more different in tone than “The Butcher Boy,” but is no less captivating. In this beautifully mediative tale, Alexander Cleave is a celebrated actor who returns to live in his childhood home. The book seemingly has little or no plot but the sheer towering beauty of its language, atmosphere and insight make it impossible to put down or to forget."

"This movie (like, Badlands a movie that’s not on this particular list) is almost perfect. Not a wasted shot, piece of dialogue, moment, or frame. John Sayles has made some amazing movies but this is my favorite of his. A beautiful, forceful movie that tells a dozen different stories wrapped around one specific, true pivotal moment in American history. And every single actor is perfect and perfectly cast."

"I’m known for “extending the truth”—my stories tend not to be limited by what actually happened but by what can sound the best! So I empathize here with Billy. A young man interested in raising his class level in the 1960s, he tells anyone who wants to hear that he is going to London “to be an actor.” His story becomes more and more transparent and tragic. Great movie."

"The one [film] that made me want to be an actor is [Franco] Zeffirelli’s Romeo and Juliet. I went and saw it and, because there might have been some sex scenes, I had to sit in front of my mom, and any time those beautiful young people took off their clothes, I would feel her hand clamp down on my eyes [laughing]. But that’s when I went, “Yes, that!'"

"The first movie that comes to my mind when somebody asks me about favorites is Searching for Bobby Fischer by Steve Zaillian. First of all, it’s a beautifully, beautifully shot and acted movie. I mean, the screenplay is brilliant, but more than anything, Conrad Hall shot the movie, and it’s one of the best performances I’ve seen by an actor of any age in a movie. The honesty and the presence of the lead kid in the movie is amazing. And every actor surrounding him is extraordinary, from Joan Allen, and Laurence Fishburne, Joe Mantegna, Ben Kingsley; Laura Linney plays like a one scene role in the movie. Like a virtually unknown at the time, Laura Linney. And just the story of father and son and the score is beautiful. It is inevitably one that I am always drawn to, and I think it’s filled with hope but also like a real darkness and the beauty of childhood."