"The film that sort of made me want to be an actor was Cool Hand Luke. I watched it one Sunday when I skipped church, and I was home sick, and it was on TBS, and I was about 12 or 13 years old. I had never seen a man cry like that. [SPOILER AHEAD] When Paul Newman finds out his mother’s died and he sits on the bed and plays “Plastic Jesus” on the banjo [END SPOILER], I was so fascinated by this masculine tough guy getting emotional, and that sort of started my interest in acting. Figuring out how one gets to that place, and why. And both he and Steve McQueen were the two people I first connected to or looked up to as actors."

"The Crossing Guard. Not a comedy. [laughs] The Sean Penn film, with Jack Nicholson and Anjelica Huston. I just remember that taking my guts out of my stomach and pulling them. I remember being doubled over – I went to see a matinee – and I was doubled over, and I was just… The loss of the innocence of this little girl. And I forget the name of the actor who plays the drunk who hits this little girl, but he wakes up, he comes to in the jail, and he realizes that he’s hit this little girl and he killed her, and he bangs his head into the bars, and he has this indent in his head for the rest of the movie. Probably more background than you wanted!"