A lot of producers cookie cut movies one after another, but I'll be a little more careful, and have the opportunity to be, because I have the acting career to subsidize the producing.

But in a broader sense, when I have more control, I want to expose people to new ideas.

A film goes through so many hands, that by the time it's done, it might not resemble what you thought you were making.

People are sheepish when they approach me.

I learn so much more in an ensemble movie.

You know, social issue movies don't make a lot of money.

I won't make a movie for money ever again.

There's always difficulties and challenges in every life, I don't care how much money you make, where you live... and that's something this film speaks to.

Where you raise your children isn't as important as how you raise your children.

Home life's great, man. The kids are great, happy and healthy. I've reached this sort of wonderful precipice.

The idea of doing something that you've seen a thousand times before doesn't appeal to me.

I am miserable when I'm in a movie I'm not proud of and a movie that I don't want to do.

There are a lot of good stories out there, but I haven't found too many great scripts.

The point is to expand the scope of what a movie can possibly mean or be, to get people involved because they're artistic or understand the point of the material, not just because they fit a certain bill aesthetically.

LA can be a very open and accepting creative environment. But it is important, because there is this odd separation here, it is important to make your kids mindful of other people and other people's plight.

Tarantino's stuff in its inception was all about finding a way for him to break into Hollywood.

I really respond to diversity, a broader landscape, with actors of different ages and races and backgrounds.

I grew up with no money. My kids will grow up with a lot of money and so it's really important to me, and it will always be a part of my parenting, to keep them conscientious and connected socially to other people.

My sisters are my favorite people on earth.

I've been in this business for a long time at my age, I've just turned 30, and I feel like my wife's career is going incredibly well, my kids are happy and healthy in schools, we've both been able to buy a house for our parents, respectively, in the places they live.

Granted, there are times when, for business reasons, you do something that's more mainstream. But even then, I try to find something that has a dark or subversive aspect.

It's nice that people want to compliment you in some superficial way, but I've never considered that that's how I might be categorized. I guess it's better than being called ugly.

My first film goes into production in October. It's called White Boy Shuffle and it's based on a novel about a young black kid and it's sort of reminiscent of Catcher in the Rye.

At 27, it's great to get to a place where I'm not an actor for hire anymore.

But I'm not particularly comfortable around guns.

I'm really interested in having a studio one day and being a filmmaker.

I know that when I grew up I was pretty sheltered, and didn't come to understand much about the world until I was in my really late teens and early twenties, and that process continues.

What's more ludicrous is the whole idea of me being jealous and competitive.

There was a time - before I made movies - when I was more forgiving, but now that I've learned as much as I have, I want to do movies that I want to see, that have their own unique flavor.

I want to make movies that people talk about when they leave the theater, that aren't clear-cut, but effective and fulfilling in some sense.

Well actually, some weeks they'll write that I'm jealous of living in her shadow. Then other weeks, they'll write that all I want to do is loaf around on her money! It's ridiculous!

I have three sisters and I've always wanted a brother, so I was really interested in that notion.

To be more involved and more aware is appealing to me.

A lot of producers cookie cut movies one after another, but I'll be a little more careful, and have the opportunity to be, because I have the acting career to subsidize the producing.

Tarantino's movies, I really enjoy, certainly, and when I was 19 and 20, I was really into them.

I've written something and I would like to have my first film directed by the time I'm 30.

To me, White Boy Shuffle is sort of like Catcher in the Rye, the story is so universal.

Look at music: I've always loved hiphop and rap, and now there's this whole progressive movement, with De La Soul and Mos Def, Common. It's some of the best stuff around.

I still have sadness and complicated feelings about my divorce. But how beneficial is it to keep hanging onto those feelings? If someone lives through an accident, his aim is to become better and healthy. My aim is always to progress - to make better decisions and be a better father, a better boyfriend, a better husband if it happens again.

It was always part of the plan to move into acting.

Be where the acting is. I live in Houston. Dallas is 4 1/2 hours away. I let them know there's no difference.

My mother keeps things in perspective for me. She makes me realize that the acting I do and love is no more important than what one of my brothers does-he works in a shoe repair shop. If my career ever tapers off, I'll go to college.

In Hungary, acting is a career for which one fits himself as earnestly as one studies for a degree in medicine, law, or philosophy.

I think acting is about forgetting yourself in order to give the best of yourself. It's passing through you more than you're creating it. You're not the flower, but the vase which holds the flower.

In LA, too many people want to go the quickest route from A to B. Method acting offers them that.

I don't see it as a form of healing, because if you have wounds that are bleeding I don't think acting will ever get them to stop. But I find acting is a form of illumination.

Maybe I can't act, but I know the gimmicks. I studied acting all my life and know what's good for me.

I know that if I'd had to go and take an exam for acting, I wouldn't have got anywhere. You don't take exams for acting, you take your courage.

I'm not acting, but I am acting.