Actor

Acting is a business and a political act and a craft, but I also feel like it's a service - specifically, for a military audience.

I trained myself, whenever I walk into auditions, to hate everyone in the room.

I was in a mountain biking accident and broke my sternum about three months before my unit was supposed to deploy to Iraq, and it's such a close-knit community that the idea of not getting to go is hugely jarring, so I tried to get put back in training and wound up injuring it worse.

I have this really big face.

My plan was to be able to make a living as an actor.

The military community in particular, I think, could always be more supported, especially people who are being processed out of the military and trying to readjust to being civilians.

I loved being in the Marine Corps, I loved my job in the Marine Corps, and I loved the people I served with. It's one of the best things I've had a chance to do.

I don't really have foresight as an actor as far as career trajectory - I just stick to no-brainer situations.

Acting, believe it or not, can get very self-involved! I feel fortunate to have been able to work on things with people who have a very specific point of view and perspective, and who feel like they're doing something very active.

At Juilliard, suddenly I was reading these great plays that could articulate the ways I was feeling in the Marine Corps, and that felt very therapeutic, by putting words to feelings, in a big way.

'Girls' feels very active and stirring a conversation and controversial, and you can't really ask for more as an actor.

Something I learned in the Marine Corps that I've applied to acting is, one, taking direction, and then working with a group of people to accomplish a mission and knowing your role within that team.

People always are desperate to have others acknowledge that they are different.

I used to eat a whole chicken, every day, for lunch. I did that for four years. But it got tiring - go to the store, buy it, eat it. It's a mess.

I auditioned in Chicago for Juilliard and didn't get in. I was basically living in a back room of my parents' house, paying rent and not doing anything with my life. I'd like to say it was patriotic to join the Marines, but it was also that I was doing nothing honorable with my life and spending too much time at McDonald's.

I feel like I have to move violently once a day, or I'll lose my mind.

I'm like a sight gag.

You have friends, and they die. You have a disease, someone you care about has a disease, Wall Street people are scamming everyone, the poor get poorer, the rich get richer. That's what we're surrounded by all the time.

I don't understand technology, and I'm very scared of it.

When you get out of the Marine Corps, you feel like you can do anything.