Growing up, did you have any personal experience of violence?
Growing up, no, I didn't. I wasn't somebody who particularly fought a lot or anything like that. I saw a lot of violent things happen, but probably no more than most kids who grew up in a city. So I can't say there was anything in particular. I have a stranger relationship to violence because my mother is a professor of early childhood education, specialising in nonviolent conflict resolution.
I hear about the portrayal of violence in cinema all the time, particularly gratuitous violence. So, I'm careful not to do any of that. I'm serious. As violent as this film is, none of that violence is gratuitous, and the characters all pay a price for the violence that they inflict on each other. That's a good message to send out to people, that there is a price to be paid for it.
You don't share much screen time, but you and DiCaprio play parallel characters. How did you make it work?
Well, the script makes it work. The script is really well-written. Leo and I read everything that comes around, and you don't really find characters this interesting and complex. A lot of this was just really on the page. And as long as Leo and I both did our work, got prepared, just played the scene without even thinking about that, and just left it to Marty to put it in context, there were bound to be similarities in the characters. I mean, they're very similar guys. They're from the same neighborhood. They're both pretending to be people they're not. There are bound to be comparisons drawn.
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