It took me forever, learning improvisation, because I had studied with Lee Strasberg - I dropped out of Chicago and went to his classes in New York for a couple of years, once or twice a week. What I didn't realize was I was learning directing because he wasn't all that good about acting, not for me.

You can always tell gifted and highly intelligent people as they always turn to the past. Any young person who knows anything that happened before 1980, or 1990, or 2000 for that matter, is immediately someone who is intelligent, probably creative, maybe a writer. Nobody who is drawn to the past and learning about the past is not gifted.

Most great plays of the past lose their grip on immediacy; on application to our lives right now.

It's not a film-maker's job to explain his technique, but to tell his story the best way he can.

I learned very early on in life that not everyone wants to hear every fact in the world, even if you want to tell them everything you've ever read.

I'm not the type of artist that's like, 'Let's go out and party and dance your life away!' I think those artists are so cool, but I wanted meaning in my songs and they have messages.

I feel like a lot of people have a hard time finding what they do, or they have a job or career and not a passion. That's miserable for me. Just find your purpose; understand that you have one life to live.

Theater is such its own living, breathing animal. You do a show every night, but it's different every night. Being on stage, you're experiencing a journey.