Acting is really about having the courage to fail in front of people.
Adam Driver
I wish I could pull shorts off. My wife tells me that I just can't. But that's okay. I'm tall, I can do other things, like change light bulbs.
There's so much emphasis on Daniel Day-Lewis and his process, which is appropriately his own. But I was just blown away by his generosity as an actor. He's so giving as an actor that he just naturally commands the focus on set.
I was in a mountain biking accident and broke my sternum about three months before my unit was supposed to deploy to Iraq, and it's such a close-knit community that the idea of not getting to go is hugely jarring, so I tried to get put back in training and wound up injuring it worse.
I trained myself, whenever I walk into auditions, to hate everyone in the room.
I feel like I have to move violently once a day, or I'll lose my mind.
Obviously, 'Lincoln' is not about the telegraph operator. There's a whole other movie before and after the two isolated scenes that I'm in.
I used to eat a whole chicken, every day, for lunch. I did that for four years. But it got tiring - go to the store, buy it, eat it. It's a mess.
We don't understand why we're here, no one's giving us an answer, religion is vague, your parents can't help because they're just people, and it's all terrible, and there's no meaning to anything.
I'm not an acting monk or anything. I'm not, like, the most well-adjusted actor.
I think it's good to live an artful life.
I originally passed on 'Girls' because I thought TV was evil.
With brain and body, it's great if you have a connection between the two, but when separated, that leads to a lot of conflict.
Just having the internet is a weird and dangerous thing because people become accustomed to knowing things when they want to know them and not having to work for it. I definitely see the value in not knowing everything and having mystery in life and mystery in people.
For me, becoming a man had a lot to do with learning communication, and I learned about that by acting.
I don't feel like I have to dress up to go to the deli.
I'm like a sight gag.
I don't understand technology, and I'm very scared of it.
I can tell more about my weaknesses than my strengths.
In the military, you learn the essence of people. You see so many examples of self-sacrifice and moral courage. In the rest of life, you don't get that many opportunities to be sure of your friends.
There's such an emphasis on having a character be likable. I don't think it would be helpful if I worried about that. I mean, not everyone's likable.
I don't consider myself a celebrity. That would be kind of sad.
I've got weird conflicting feelings about my generation.
Through theater and acting school, I found a way to articulate myself.
When I read for 'Girls,' I was like, 'The script says 'Handsome Carpenter,' so someone else is going to get the part. They'll have someone handsome, not me.'
You always read stories of people going out to California and making it as an actor with, like, two dollars, so I figured I'd try it.
I feel like I'll never get over red carpets. They're so bizarre and awkward.
I have this really big face.
I auditioned in Chicago for Juilliard and didn't get in. I was basically living in a back room of my parents' house, paying rent and not doing anything with my life. I'd like to say it was patriotic to join the Marines, but it was also that I was doing nothing honorable with my life and spending too much time at McDonald's.
At Juilliard, suddenly I was reading these great plays that could articulate the ways I was feeling in the Marine Corps, and that felt very therapeutic, by putting words to feelings, in a big way.
You have friends, and they die. You have a disease, someone you care about has a disease, Wall Street people are scamming everyone, the poor get poorer, the rich get richer. That's what we're surrounded by all the time.
I have a control problem. I hate the feeling of not being in control.
The Marine Corps is some of the best acting training you could have. Having that responsibility for people's lives, suddenly time becomes a really valuable commodity and you want to make the most of it. And for acting, you just have to do the work, just keep doing it.
I'm not such a big fan of having a linear answer to things.
I was living in a small town in Indiana working as a telemarketer and a vacuum salesman. I was really bad: the vacuums seemed to always be falling apart. Every time I did a demonstration, I'd say, 'This is the material the astronauts used on Apollo 13.' And no sooner had that come out of my mouth, something would malfunction.
Interesting things always come from being really exhausted and really sick.
I loved being in the Marine Corps, I loved my job in the Marine Corps, and I loved the people I served with. It's one of the best things I've had a chance to do.
I don't really have foresight as an actor as far as career trajectory - I just stick to no-brainer situations.
I don't know what else you could do that is more vulnerable - maybe dancing - than singing.
Acting is a business and a political act and a craft, but I also feel like it's a service - specifically, for a military audience.
I was born in California. When I was six, we moved to a small town in northern Indiana called Mishawaka.
You have to be forward-moving and able to balance a lot of things at the same time. I attribute a lot of that to the Marine Corps and Juilliard both.
Costume people are always saying they don't have clothes big enough for me.
I did plays in high school, but I was convinced you couldn't make a living doing it. You don't have a lot of options in Indiana anyway, though, so I didn't want to stay there. I graduated early and worked a bunch of really odd jobs, and then I joined the Marines.
I don't have cable. I just never watched a lot of TV.
The first job I got was this TV job in this show called 'The Unusuals.' Then I did a play called 'Slipping,' and at the same time I was rehearsing another play at Playwrights Horizons, and that kind of snowballed into a bunch of plays.
If I'm not doing something or working on something, I literally just sit in the room and think, which I don't think is productive. I won't go outside for days.
If there's one organization in the United States that could work on its communication skills, it's the military.
Acting, believe it or not, can get very self-involved! I feel fortunate to have been able to work on things with people who have a very specific point of view and perspective, and who feel like they're doing something very active.
I saw the pilot for 'Girls' about six months before it aired.
