You get a role like this in a big action movie [like Jack Reacher] and you can go one of two ways: you can paint in broad strokes, which happens a lot in action films, or you can get very detailed.

Psychopaths don't have that charming skill set. They definitely manipulate, but they do it through focused, unskilled means. They're more obsessive.

I read as many books about the psychology of a psychopath as I could and I researched what exactly happens to soldiers.

You can hear how hard I work, I think, from these stories I'm telling. I'm incredibly dedicated and I'm sort of known as that to a point that people tease me about it.

I'm obsessive about my job and I want it to be as great as it can possibly be, especially right now in these early parts of my career.

I want to make sure everything has my 100%.

When I look at myself in the mirror, I don't see the bad guy.

When I did Casual, I just let myself put on weight because he's a schoolteacher. He's not meant to be muscle-y.

Obviously I was talking to my parents and my girlfriend all the time, but it's one thing to finally be in the same room and get to be with each other and just hang out.

I had done a little bit one other time. This character [in Jack Reacher] is a psychopath, but I had been hired by Carlton Cuse and Randall Wallace.

I went into very deep research as to what exactly that meant and how sociopaths function psychologically and within the world.

The motivation of all artists is 'Look at me, Mum'.

The heartland lies where the heart longs to be. Sometimes it takes a lifetime to find the true place to plant it.

It is necessary to try to surpass one's self always this occupation ought to last as long as life.

If a scene is longer than three pages, it better be for a good reason.

So the programs all start to all look the same. I watched one free skating competition, and I thought I was watching a short program. Everyone was doing exactly the same elements.

The work of the director is the work of constructing the shot list from the script.

At a certain age I just stopped arguing. I realized that there was no way [my father] could see, because for him to approve of what I was doing, he would have to have some belief in me as a musician.

Of all the things you can spend a lot of money on, the only things you expect to fail frequently are software and medicine.

Sure, I have advice for people starting to write. Don't. I don't need the competition.

Infinite patience produces immediate results.