We didn't get to see a lot of movies in my house growing up, so the first time I got to go to the movies - I think it was 'E.T.' - I was like, 'Oh my God, somebody else gets my imagination!'

I can safely say that I had an incredibly difficult and trying past growing up and trying to be an artist and standing up as who I am in this world.

It's a struggle for anybody to take their paradigms and set of beliefs and understandings and completely flip the script.

My favorite thing about working with Lady Gaga is really just the sheer level of creativity she brings to the table. And she's really one of the most intelligent people I've ever known. Her intelligence is equaled by her heart.

The energy that New York exudes is as much the light of extinguished souls as it is the spark of individual enterprise. And while the full meaning of the city may prove elusive, all New Yorkers are painfully aware that it remains an intractable mass of contradictions. It is not just the extremes of wealth and poverty living side by side.

When I work out, I make healthier choices in all areas of life, and when I don't, I tend to slack on other things, too, so I like to keep a good routine going.

I was looking for the meaning of life when I was in college. And my deal with my dad was as long as I was taking a full course load, then he would pay. And the times that I wasn't taking a full course load, then I was off the dole and I was working.

Being an actor is a matter of choice that, above all, takes place at an existential level: either you express the conservative structures of society and are nothing more that a tool in the hands of power, or you address the progressive components of this society in an attempt to settle a revolutionary relation between art and life.