My playing music is strictly for fun. When I was in a band, I was really excited to talk about it since I had never really played music to that extent. It was never meant as something I would consider as anything more than having fun with my friends. But I think I would enjoy writing music for the movies that I'm working on.

Russia itself is an extremely complex country, and sometimes I feel like all of that comes back to haunt me. I can see why so many Russian writers were so tortured.

Teenagers are like atoms when they're moving at hundreds of miles an hour and bouncing off each other. Everybody's got such a crazy hormonal drive and reacting to each other differently and getting upset over little things. High school puts all these potential explosions in one place.

I don't feel any connection to Russia.

I don't hang out at trendy Hollywood bars.

I feel lucky to be in whatever I'm in. I feel lucky to be working.

I love academics, theory and all that. I love and admire that and try to do as much reading as I can.

I love Andy Warhol!

I love movies.

I prefer when movies target my heart instead of my mind.

I think you can always find interesting, complex and fascinating characters to play in different kinds of movies. It's in your hands.

I tried ice-skating and wasn't very good at it.

I want things to be characters and not me. Why would I want to play me?

I'm actually embarrassed to tell people I'm Russian these days, because it's become such an awful place.

I'm fascinated by how ethnic communities have assimilated into massive capitalist environments.

I'm not passive aggressive. If something bothers me, I think about it, then I act on it. I express it.

I've been lucky to be able to work with great people and on interesting material.

I've been lucky to play characters that are really broad.

It would be nice to live off the land and fix cars.

Maybe silence is something we're uncomfortable with as a culture, I don't know.