I always felt like reality was a bizarre place, and everybody was really good at being normal, and I didn't know how to do it.
I barely belong to this world, but still I'm participating.
I'd read an enormous amount but had spent so much time in my own head that I didn't have extensive social skills. Suddenly I was in this world where I was surrounded by these incredibly polished and wealthy kids who had gone to prep schools, and I felt daunted by them. I don't think people were aware of how full of anxiety I was... For a long time I felt like I was living in a place where I shouldn't have been.
I've never fit in anywhere in my life. Ever.
I have this thing. I've always been uncomfortable going to any party where people don't understand why I'm there. One of the best things about partaking in a show like this is, when I show up to events and parties now, they know me. I don't have to hear, 'Oh, you're an actor? Have I seen you in anything?' anymore. I used to have to start listing things off of my resume'. It's really nice not to have to do that anymore.
I didn't necessarily fit in in high school. I felt very awkward. I still feel completely awkward and weird in my body sometimes. I'm hoping that's going to go away, but I've just embraced it as reality.
I felt like, 'How do I fit in?' But then I never fit in. The whole time, I've never fit in.
I stand in the center aisle of the auditorium, a wounded zebra in a National Geographic special, looking for someone, anyone to sit next to. A predator approaches: gray jock buzz cut, whistle around a neck thicker than his head. Probably a social studies teacher, hired to coach a blood sport.
I have been a stranger in a foreign land.
In a lot of ways, in high school, I was very much an outsider and never really felt like I fit into any particular clique or group, and so I found myself solo very often.
This was never any place I was meant to be. This isn’t a place for me.
I didn't feel that so much as an outsider when I started writing; I've felt that way all my life. I don't know, man; I guess I was just wired wrong. When I was growing up, I always wanted to be somebody else and live somewhere else. I've always felt a little uncomfortable around people. And I'm not trying to romanticize this, because it wasn't romantic. I wasn't trying to be a rebel; I just always felt a little out of it. I think that's why it's pretty easy for me to identify with people living on the margins.
I went to a couple Academy Awards parties and I was definitely like, 'Whoa, no one will talk to me.'
And there I was, 225 pounds, perpetually lost and confused, short legs, ape-like upper body, all chest, no neck, head too large, blurred eyes, hair uncombed, 6 feet of geek, waiting for her.
Sometimes I feel like I’m actually on the wrong planet. It’s great when I’m in my garden, but the minute I go out the gate I think, ‘What the hell am I doing here?
My problem might be that even if I did go home, I wouldn’t belong there, among people who give without thinking and care without trying.
My upbringing has given me sympathy for the idea of isolation and what it is to be a new person in the room, where everyone else has some amount of familiarity and comfort.
People would look at me weird. You know, like, 'Why is this guy's hands always in his pockets?' But I was embarrassed by the size of my hands.
When you're with a bunch of loud 20-year-olds, if you're on a movie and everybody is a lot younger than you and they want you to go to a club, I'm not very comfortable in that situation. I've been on movies when everybody goes out to some loud place. I don't know; I'm not comfortable.
I have to admit, I was a little bit of a misfit.
Mostly, I could tell, I made him feel uncomfortable. He didn't understand me, and he was sort of holding it against me. I felt the urge to reassure him that I was like everybody else, just like everybody else. But really there wasn't much point, and I gave up the idea out of laziness.
["I Don't Feel at Home in This World Anymore" ] really jumped off the page. And there were so many specific notes within the context of the script. Music cues, for instance.
I hate the term black sheep, but I just felt like I wasn't keeping up. It was a subtle pressure I put on myself.
Everyone's moving on without me, into a world I don't understand.
As it was, I couldn't escape the feeling that I was out of my element. I found myself thinking of a book I'd left half-read at home and wishing I'd stuck it in my purse so I could pull it out now.
