The experience of making a movie, you start to see it everywhere. It's just this amazing mechanism that your brain does because it just so badly wants to be helpful and keep all the information that you need as accessible as possible.
In the past I've been very into the falling part, very into the swimming in the dark, deep emotional water. 'Rampart' I really went into it and it took me three times as long to get out of that depression as it did to just do the scenes. I had to learn to give it my all and then go home and laugh.
I think that usually I'm just drawn to something that's different from something that I've done previously. Whatever makes me feel something. Whatever makes me excited and connected to it.
I try to find some sort of meditative hobby to do on set, and it's different for every film. There's a lot of downtime, but I don't like reading on set because it feels like you're taking yourself out of your world, instead of being present. And then, you feel like you're not ready to do whatever you have to do.
The main thing for me is just the length of time it takes to make a movie. It's at least a year of just talking about it, talking about it with yourself or your director or your other castmates or the press, so you just want to make sure it's a film that although you initially feel this pull or this drive to it, you don't really have the answers to why you're drawn to it. But it's more about not knowing the answers to certain questions but wanting to go on the journey of discovery to find the answers.
There's obviously something that feels very good about being with a new filmmaker who's very excited, but I also think there's something very comforting in a director who's been around a few times. Both have their pros and cons.
I started acting in second grade - my first role was in the Thanksgiving play. I was the Indian chasing the turkey. All the other mom's encouraged my mom to get me into acting after that.
It's hard when I get to the end of the movie and am held hostage and am supposed to be very upset and the funniest things I've ever heard in my life are coming out. All I can do is pretend there's something really important behind me to hide my face from it.
It [the film industry] is not a glamorous industry. It's really, really hard, and you get told all the time, "You're not this, you're not that," and so you have to find a center.
I have always been really picky about the films that I make, because I think that there's such an incredible opportunity to bring up questions when you're making movies, and some of my favorite films bring up big questions. They are movies that, when you walk away from it, it hits you as something deeper, and it's a great, fun way to be able to bounce around some of these harder concepts in our heads.
As an actor, I think you can get really bad habits, if you do the same thing, every day. You can get stuck in a rut. So, I like jumping between genres, and then taking a break and learning something new. I like feeling like I'm still learning.
I was home-schooled 'cause I wanted to be an actor. I would spend all day watching movies, trying to get through calculus.
Clothing totally changes my perception of how I feel about myself depending on what it is that I'm wearing.
I was 3 when I told my mom that I knew what my dharma was and that I wanted to be an actor.
I would go into periods of depression in my life, and I would feel so alone. I felt that there was no one who understood how I felt, either on TV or in music, and writing really helped me change what I thought and how I felt about myself.
I only write about stuff I know. I don't have a lot of experience with boys and stuff so I write a lot of songs about interesting and strange subjects that people wouldn't write songs about.
I didn't have a regular school experience and wanted a more abstract way of learning. I started exploring in lots of different creative ways. It gave me the opportunity to travel and play music, so it was good for me.
Lately, I've been getting too much attention with the Met Gala and work going so well that I try to find rejection in my day. I'll seek out someone on the street or at the farmers' market and ask for something where I know they'll say no. No one likes rejection, but it's real. And I don't want to lose that feeling.
