What I try to do often when I'm acting and what I like when I'm seeing good acting is how authentic it is. How true is this to what I know of the world that's been created for me? The ultimate test for me is, like, if I heard a clip of it on the radio, I'd like the audience not to know if I'm acting.
To feel nervous; to feel threatened and vulnerable and alive and engaged in that sense when interacting with someone you're really attracted to? I think that's wonderful. That's usually the best part. In fact, it's almost always downhill from there.
I like directing myself; I feel like it's one less person to give notes to. There's an efficiency in it. I'm also kind of a control freak. So I like the fact that it gives me more control in the overall picture.
I try to preserve whatever balance society has between public and personal life. I never try to eat on the subway. I never try to listen to loud music on the subway.
I'm from Boston, and I get easily overwhelmed in New York, so I go to Boston and stay with my parents for a few months at a time to write, or edit, or just to cry.
If I only acted, I feel like I wouldn't have enough creative expression over my own sensibility, and also if I only acted, the notion of surrendering my fate and future to other people is deeply unsettling to me and it would make me uncomfortable.
If you film a scene in a wide shot, especially a disturbing, distressing moment, I do feel like that helps you feel as though you're the room with these people, instead of cutting it up and getting close - which you wouldn't be doing if you were actually in a room with these people.
