“[director] ben affleck didn't want a dialect coach. he wanted authenticity. he sent me off with a couple of ex-cons and i visited some prisons and some bars for two weeks”

“it’s a beautiful teaching for me, and there is something new for me to learn every day because a kid’s perspective is the most glorious perspective of all—it’s wide-eyed, and everything is kind of brand new.”

“i’ve been fortunate enough to be good at problem-solving, it doesn’t mean all the solutions are perfect or that they’re even good. but at least it’s a solution instead of doing nothing. stagnancy is complacency. it’s like a pond: if water does not move, it sits and collects scum. a river is moving; it’s alive and ever-changing.”

“it’s a bit dark when you’re doing criminology, because you’re dealing with all this death and crime, and the dark side of human behavior, but studying those things informed me as an actor and a human being.”

“even if i didn’t always like school, i had a practical sensibility about things. getting good grades would get me more freedom. i never allowed myself a bad emotion or thought. that was all suppressed. [laughs] hence, look at the characters i play now. all those roles are therapeutic.”

“i don’t think there is light without the dark, a truth doesn’t exist without a lie, you know? my job is always to look at other people’s perspectives, and in general, i always try to remain very, very hopeful about even the bleakest situation. it’s coming through darkness or hardships or failures in life, where successes become real success.”

jeremy renner: “i'm just not a big disco guy, there’s a few that i like, you know, kind of get you movin’ and groovin’, mostly i like the rock that came out of the 70s”

blacktree tv: “you got disco moves?”

“hero or villain, i think there are a lot of gray areas. for storytelling purposes, you need the bad guy and the good guy. but a hero should be flawed because otherwise, he is a boring, one-dimensional character. similarly for the villain. if all he does are bad things, it's uninteresting.”