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Above all, I craved to seize the whole essence, in the confines of one single photograph, of some situation that was in the process of unrolling itself before my eyes.

Before I became an actor, I was a visual artist, and I've always hankered for the storytelling behind the camera.

Every view, and every object I studied attentively, by viewing them again and again on every side, for I was anxious to make a lasting impression of it on my imagination.

Now when I see something beautiful or funny or sweet, sometimes I reach for my camera, but other times I think, 'I need to let this moment exist. I don't have to capture everything. I just want to experience it.'

I realized all of the possibilities that could exist for me with my camera: all of the images that I could capture, all of the lives I could enter, all of the people I could meet and how much I could learn from them.

My movement from painting to film was a very conscious one.

I throw everything I have into whatever story I'm writing - and so there's something immensely gratifying about finishing one piece and then starting fresh with a new setting, time period and cast of characters, getting to see the world through a completely different lens each time.

I think one of the reasons I've been successful is that I can see things before other people do. I've always been able to do it.

I realized that acting was the thing I was still maybe the best at. Of the things I felt like I was good at, that was the thing that came the most naturally to me.

I think in the early part of my career, the roles were so disparate that it never gave anybody an opportunity to understand my essence and what I would be good at doing, as opposed to what I would not be good at doing, so these little moments of beautiful things that were happening to me were consistent, but very few and very far between.