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.
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.
This was never any place I was meant to be. This isn’t a place for me.
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.
