There's no room for being a visionary in the studio system. It literally cannot exist.
Old Americana vintage gangster stuff has a fantastical feel; it feels less dirty in a way. It feels like the opera of crime.
I think every young actor in Los Angeles went up for that role. It was between Frankie Muniz and me, and he pulled out, so I got the role.
I grew up around a lot of aggressive guys. My parents used to take me to AA meetings when I was very young. So I know aggression, I know insanity.
I feel like I'm really honest in my interviews, to a fault. I've lost friends over it. Major friends. And I'm heartbroken about that.
The best movies are simple.
Most actors on most days don't think they're worthy.
I've had to deal with all different types of situations - positive and negative and extremes of both.
I've spent more on my Dodger tickets that I did on my car.
A lot of people like to think that golf is a lazy man's sport. Or it's a rich man's sport, or it's a sport that they can't be involved in.
Agents are used to the parents pimping. They're not used to the kid pimping.
Comics, for me, is being able to sing alone in the shower. I find it freeing. You just pick up a pen and get to it.
My family, my parents are hippies.
This is hands down the biggest, most exciting thing I've ever been involved with in my life. I can only compare it to my Bar Mitzvah.
I would like to be George Clooney - diplomatic. I just don't have the wherewithal yet or the inner serenity.
Nobody makes movies like Oliver Stone.
Hey, I'm a human being also.
Every time you make a movie it's an adventure.
Every actor chooses their story at the beginning.
My dad is a motorcycle guy, not some Hollywood dude.
Child actors become types. The cutesy type, the funny type, the dark type. Any time you're a type, your career's over. It's not been effortless for me; I've had bumps in the road, you know? I was in Dumb And Dumberer. It's not been a flawless thing so far. But all in all, I'm proud of it. Most proud of it because of the diversity. Because the genres are different.
I'm still in the middle of the transition. I'm still in man-boy mode. And that won't go away for a while. But it's a fun time to be in, because it's very rare that people get to work through this time. It's rare to see a John Cusack in Say Anything. It's rare that you'd find an actor right in the cusp of the child-to adult transition, just got through puberty, just getting into a different way of life. There's few movies like that, and few roles like that, so it's going to be tough to pick and choose. I guess the goal is good people, work with good people.
It's fun right now, and I love it right now, but I don't know where I'm going to be tomorrow, 'cause I'm not psychic. But I know that over the last 10 years, acting has been the only joy, this has been - it's strange to say, 'cause the thinking is off. But this is more important than my hobbies, my family, my love, my friends. It's the most important thing in the world to me.
You have to be a master to teach.
I was doing stand up comedy when I was 11, that's how I got started; not because I wanted to do comedy, but because we were broke, living in Echo Park in Downtown Los Angeles, from 1986, I saw the Rodney King riots; my parents didn't really work. But I wanted a new backpack, that's how I got into this business - I wanted a new backpack.
