Quotes

[about his character in Jack & Bobby (2004)] "The kind of boy few people really understand. He's a bit of a misfit."

I'd much rather play sports with my free time. I also like watching classic movies and watching certain TV shows, like The Simpsons (1989). I'm a big basketball fan too. That would be my sport of choice.

[Portraying a geek is] "Fun. I'm not the kind of guy kids picked on in school, but I've seen it happen. I've never really given much thought to being cool. I don't really think about it one way or the other."

I'm not the kind of guy who got into this to be famous.

The best thing about this is being able to learn from, and act with, your heroes.

I just don't want to repeat the same thing over and over again, so I'm always looking for something that's going to be challenging and make me nervous every time I start a project.

I'm from Los Angeles and acting was accessible. There's always a place to wait in line for an audition and I kind of begged my parents to take me. My mom nurtured my career and helped me climb the ladder. I have had a passion for movies from a young age. I first got interested in acting when I was probably four or five.

Some people don't have an open mind, and when I was traveling to different places I think I found it hard to enjoy things. You know, I come from a great city where there are lots of things happening, and if you end up in a small town where you don't have all those things you can feel the difference. Somewhere along the way, though, I think I learned to appreciate the difference.

They say every year you put off university is like three years if you want to go back. But, for now, this seems like the right path.

I play music. I love learning a new instrument and creating songs; it also goes hand in hand with filmmaking, like creating a feeling and emotion in music to complement a scene. Songwriting, guitar, piano, bass, ukulele, a little bit of violin, a little bit of everything - primarily guitar and piano. It's just a hobby for now, maybe it would turn into a profession someday... who knows.

I've always been able to just go off for a couple of months, shoot a film, go back to school and have my regular life. My family thought it was really important to have that level of normalcy. You kind of need to keep that in order to even tap into a character, let alone be a functioning human being.

[on his similarities to his character in The Perks of Being a Wallflower (2012)] I guess with his awkwardness and trying to figure things out in that time period and how to socialize and fit in. I guess I wasn't as naive as him, but I definitely had the morals that he had... A lot of situations in the script have actually happened to me in real life, so I just connected with it.

[on not enjoying watching his own work] I didn't watch Perks until it was released... I really liked it, but felt uncomfortable watching it. I know it's a character and everything, but it's still uncomfortable to watch... That's kind of how I feel about Fury right now.

[on his similarity to his character, Marcus, in Indignation (2016)] I share very similar views to Marcus. I come from a Jewish family, as well. I definitely identify myself as being Jewish, and I'm proud of my background. But I have the same questions as Marcus has in his mind about life and religion. I'm questioning - I question things and I have no answers.