My dad died when I was a kid, so I think it became a place for me to go where my mom knew that I was safe and taken care of and looked after.
If it was a biopic about Glenn Greenwald, I would have immersed myself more fully in his personal life and gotten to know him as much as I could, but because it was much more about his relationship to this particular situation, to The Guardian, to Laura Poitras, and to Ewen MacAskill, and Edward Snowden, I was able to really learn a lot about him from reading his book and reading his many articles and accounts of that time.
There was a little bit of hesitancy about staying in Pittsburgh and not moving away for college, but that didn't last long. It was right in line with what I wanted, so I auditioned there and it wasn't a tough decision.
I had just gotten Heroes, and I had just found out that I was going to be doing [Star] Trek, and I thought it was probably a good idea for me to create an infrastructure that would allow me to do my own work and put my stuff into the world.
It didn't really change my opinion about [Edward] Snowden all that much, but I definitely feel like as a culture, it gave us information that generated a responsibility to protect ourselves as much as we can and also a responsibility to hold our government accountable to honoring our constitutional rights.
I'm incredibly happy, I'm incredibly lucky.
I think there's a tremendous sense of complacency in the LGBT community. AIDS has lost the edge of horror it possessed when it swept through the world in the '80s. Today's generation sees it more as something to live with and something to be much less fearful of. And that comes with a sense of, dare I say, laziness. We need to be really vigilant and open about the fact that these drugs are not to be taken to increase our ability to have recreational sex.
I knew I needed a partner. I needed someone who could focus on and spearhead the business side of things, and [Neal Dodson] was great at that. That's how it started.
Heroes and Star Trek were 2006 and 2007, and I was just about to turn 30, and everything changed. I found myself on this amazing journey, which continues, but it's now at a natural transition point. I'm reevaluating and reexamining how and where I go from here.
I've had some pretty stimulating conversations about where we are politically as a result of this movie [Snowden], but then there are a lot of questions just about that sensationalism of it.
I came up during the 'Star Wars' generation and that was sort of the thing I plugged into much more. It was a little before my time and I think it was sort of grappling with these intellectual ideas that were a little advanced for my young mind. At the time. But now I have a much deeper appreciation for it.
Our third partner [with Neal Dodson] was this other guy called Corey [Moosa], and he came in with good ideas and also some access to money, and so we joined forces and drew up a business plan and got financing for the beginnings of the company. We had no idea what we were doing really. We just started looking through material and started producing our own stuff.
Zoe Saldana is such an angel. She’s got such an openness and vulnerability on camera and yet such great strength. She can kick ass with the best of them, but then she can soften and open up in a way that is magnetizing whether you’re watching her on set or on screen – she’s got a real power to her. I love her; we’ve known each other for years and it’s great to come back to that kind of familiarity, especially when you’re working with such intimacy.
I just find that there's something about looking back on interviews, whether for purposes of remembering what I said about something or if it's for posterity when I'm 75.
My passion is acting, and has always been. It's what brought me to this point of being able to diversify and do other things, and I hope it's something I'll continue to have a passion for.
We [with Neal Dodson and Corey Moosa] spent a lot of time writing, for lack of a better word, this manifesto about what we wanted to do. We wanted to find work that was relevant socially and that didn't take audiences for granted.
I'm also really fulfilled by having a production company and producing movies, and learning about how that works and happens. It's a totally, entirely separate skill set and it's one that I happen to also enjoy. So, I intend to cultivate all of those things until I can't anymore. That's my goal. I love to be challenged and busy, and so far, so good. I'm just going to do whatever I can to continue to encourage that.
I think it's always good when you're able to, as an actor, allow your work to be some kind of a conduit for social discourse, and an examination of where we are, as a society.
I just try to let myself really focus on the work that's ahead of me and what my job is and how I bring something to life.
I probably get eight straight hours of acting in an entire season or two seasons of Suits. It's broken into such small pieces.
Exercise is an important element of being an actor, on any level.
I love playing characters that go to extreme places, and I love to explore different kinds of psychological landscapes, so it is ultimately a kind of fun, but it's also complicated and colored by the depth of the nastiness of it, at certain times, as well.
I love supporting emerging voices, and new writers and directors. I love engaging an audience in a way that doesn't have to involve me, personally, and yet still generates an experience for groups of people.
I recognized that I had a window of opportunity that had opened because of my exposure as an actor.
I don't immerse myself in the Internet chatter because it opens you up to a whole source of danger.
