I would say that the things that have really left a mark on me have more to do with my family and my children's lives rather than a film role.
Let me put it this way. There is more to acting than just acting like somebody. I like to act in such a way that other people get some notion of what it's like to be somebody.
I'm a chameleon when it comes to languages.
The sights and sounds and smells, the whole genre of Westerns - I love them.
I've found that most people who studied when they were little, even if they never took another tap class, it's percussive, so it stays in your body, the muscle memory of it.
I started in improv and went into different kinds of things.
I'm a very musical person.
I write music as a staff writer for Universal Music Group, and I have since 2007. I've never talked about it publicly because I wanted to earn the right to be in the same room as the great writers I write with and not shoot my mouth off because I'm an actor. It's really important to me, and I really care about it.
Do I feel like I still need to prove myself? Absolutely. And I want to feel that way, and I like that.
I've had battles with writers who live in L.A. and were writing southern characters, because they felt like if they wrote 'Sugar' and 'Honey' at the end of every sentence, that would make it southern.
There are no worse cliches than southern cliches. They make my skin crawl.
I remember when I was growing up and watching southern people depicted on television, I thought, 'Well, based on what I'm seeing, I guess I'm supposed to be stupid and racist.' It's still, sadly, the easy route for a writer to go.
'Step Brothers' is probably the film the most people who approach me want to talk about.
I panic at parties. I don't like talking absolutely nothing and pretending, so I'm quite odd socially.
Wii on Nintendo is amazing.
I love to paint. And I have another profession - an interior design business.
There's a certain freedom that comes when people don't expect you to be sexy.
We don't want to be reminded that life ends at some point, so they don't put older people on the screen.
As an actor, you're always looking for, what do I get to do? It's not just what do I say, but what do I do, too.
I did 'Philadelphia' and 'What's Eating Gilbert Grape?' at the same time. It's kind of wonderful to do it that way, because you get very hyper-focused.
