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If I can get the audience to connect with the characters emotionally - and they love who they are, they love the larger-than-life situation that they're in, but most of all get the audience invested in the characters - then I always feel like I can sort of put them in the most outrageous circumstances, and the audience is okay to go with that.

Personally, I've always had to face casting directors or producers saying, 'You're right for the part, but nahh, you're not quite what we're looking for.'

Any time you put a cast like this in compromising circumstances or shake it up a little bit, I think we're all pretty close so we draw on real emotion.

I know I'm not some matinee idol, but I think we're sold this bill of goods by the media, which says that only the most beautiful and dashing people can become movie stars. So when someone like me sneaks in, they have to redo the calculations.

You need the actors to feel as much ownership of the performance and the direction of the story as you do to get the most out of everyone's potential. Part of it is just making sure we all have the same vision.

I think when you're dealing with very tenuous scenes and difficult and heavy subject matter, it's important to be close intimately with your cast as friends, and be able to diffuse a lot of that tension and trust each other with the work.

I don't need to worry about being idolised.

I feel like my responsibility as an actor is to make characters as compelling and believable as possible.

I shoot people in a way that makes the audience feel equal to them. And it's hard to express and it's hard to execute but I think it works on every level - the choice of the material the choice of the actor, my relationship with the actor, and so on.

When it comes to casting, I've been so lucky. I've worked with unbelievable actors who make me look better than I am and take the written word and make it honest.