"The Hunt. It’s a Danish movie about a guy (Mads Mikkelsen) and he’s been accused of molesting a kid. The other thing that’s great in that movie is he’s got a very noble quality as a man who believes in himself. He’s the kind of guy that if it were to happen to him, the self-righteous indignation, at first, completely f***s him. He rejects it so hard and then he looks guilty. The self-preservation is… He’s not trying to explain himself at all because it’s so insulting: a great quality to act. And that’s like what’s great is that the actor in that film helps solve the puzzle of the movie. If an actor played it differently… What’s great is his flaw; his character flaw is what makes the whole storyline happen. If he could just be a little more direct and not so disdainful, more kind of humble and understanding, it wouldn’t have all gone down. It’s just because he circles the wagons way too quickly; he gets angry too quickly and just makes himself look guilty. So, yeah. I love films like that where you find yourself yelling back at the screen."

"I would go back to Buster Keaton’s The General. The accomplishment of that movie in those days, you know… First of all, Buster Keaton as an actor — and as a comedian — but as an actor really, was… again, I think the word “sublime” comes across, because of that sort of deadpan quality that he had. When he was still, you felt as though his feet had roots, and they were sort of embedded and grounded into the ground. And, you know, a hurricane could come and it would never push him over. So that sense of stillness that he had, that had this kind of emotional weight inside of it, created juxtaposition to the stuff that he would do. Even if he was moving around, there was always a sense of a “man against the world” kind of thing that was always very compelling. But that movie, what he did with that movie, with that train, and the kind of stunts he was doing on his own, and just running around… I mean, just the accomplishment of that movie from a technical standpoint in those days was quite something. So that’s my list as of today."

"I’m taking you in a slightly different direction now, and I’m going to throw down Kathryn Bigelow’s The Hurt Locker. To me, as an actor, and as a lover and proponent of independent film, what Kathryn Bigelow and Jeremy Renner were able to do on a budget… The storytelling in this movie is sublime. I would have a hard time putting any performance by a male actor above the beautifully nuanced, incredibly layered performance that Jeremy Renner gives in this movie. Yes, he was nominated; I still don’t think he gets enough credit for this performance. Maybe it’s my place in life, maybe it’s the age I was when I saw the film, maybe it’s the fact that I’ve been frustrated with the lack of war films coming out at a time when America was at war and these stories needed to be told. I still feel like they need to be told and aren’t necessarily being told the right way. The Hurt Locker, to me, is as perfect a film as you can make. And Jeremy Renner, Anthony Mackie, Brian Geraghty — those three characters, gosh… That movie blows me away."