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My eyes opened, and the first thing I thought of when I could put thoughts together was I want to be in show business. Never wanted anything else. I used to sneak in the costume room at my nursery school and smell the costumes.

I think everybody's had that feeling of sitting in a theater, in a dark room, with other strangers, watching a very powerful film, and they felt that feeling of transformation.

I once spent an entire night in a hotel in New York looking across the way into someone's apartment where nothing was happening but daily life, a phone call, television watching, staring into the fridge. Seeing how those strangers lived over that small distance and in absolute silence moved me deeply.

When I was young and it was someone's birthday, I didn't have the money to buy nice presents so I would take my mom's camera and make a movie parody for whoever's birthday it was. When I'd show it them, they'd die laughing. That reaction was a high for me, and I loved that feeling.

I remember how my mom would take me on the subway from Queens to Broadway. We'd go to the offices of casting agents. Many doors were slammed in our faces. I was just a boy, but I remember that well.

I always remember responding very emotionally to film. I had a lot of lonely time on my hands because I wasn't really the best-looking kid in my town and I sort of pined after girls. I had to sort of immerse myself in the arts because girls weren't particularly interested in me.

Chasing the sensation. Whether it was drugs or sex or whatever. Those things had become my main focus in life.

I remember going to the theatre when I was little and the lights going down and just getting really scared about what was going to happen up there.

Sitting at the table during Color Purple and looking up and suddenly realizing I was acting in front of Steven Spielberg, was pretty cool. It was pretty good.