Alex Frost in Elephant Courtesy of Fine Line Features

Was it the fact that Elephant won the Palm d'Or in Cannes in 2003 that convinced you to pursue an acting career?
No. I decided that after maybe a day or two of working on that film. I was really young, so I can't say that I really remember specifically what was going through my head. But I never had a better time in my life doing anything.

You had little to no acting experience when you did Elephant. You're described has a natural. Have you found that simply the experience of being on set is your best education?
Well, when I came down to Los Angeles, I had just turned 16. I spent a lot of time studying with different acting coaches. But, yeah, I guess you could say that I have never had any formal training. I've never been to Julliard or anything like that. I am in New York now and I have been going to all these theater productions and it is so daunting for me to see all the theater actors because it is so different from film acting. I have a lot of friends who have tried to transfer over from theater to film and they say that they had to unlearn everything they learned in drama school. They throw it all away when they happen to get a job doing a movie. I feel like where I have come from and throwing myself into doing it on a day-to-day basis as far as auditioning and studying film itself, it is a whole different style of acting. I have, I guess, created my own way about it but I have done so with the help of a lot different acting coaches.

You've worked with an interesting cross-section of independent directors from Van Sant to Kimberly Peirce. How much have learned about filmmaking from their direction and is that something you are also interested in?
Yeah, I am extremely interested in one day making my own films. Right now, I am acting and I will do this for as long as I can, but eventually I would love to make my own films. [Film] is one of the most powerful mediums that we have and I think it is not even close to what its capacity could be. I think we are on track to make movies that are really more powerful than anything we have ever seen before. I think it is just a matter of time before it happens.

You have two other films coming up. Calvin Marshall, another comedy, has you playing the lead. Your character dreams of making the junior college baseball team?
I play a pretty tightly wound guy. He has been obsessed with baseball his whole life. The whole movie is founded in baseball, and he has the spirit and the passion of it all but he just has no talent for the game. I got to work with Steve Zahn, who is hysterical in it. I learned a lot from him actually — I learned a lot from the director and the entire crew.

Up next you're filming The Vicious Kind in Connecticut now with Brittany Snow and J.K. Simmons. What can you tell us about this project?
It's a drama that I'm shooting right now that is being produced by Neil LaBute [director of In the Company of Men and Nurse Betty]. It carries a lot of the same tone that his material does so that's why I think he got involved with the project. It's about a kid who brings his girlfriend home for Thanksgiving and his older brother who is 35 ends up becoming obsessed with her and actually falls in love wit her. And the way it plays out is very morally ambiguous. It kind of hits you in the stomach pretty hard at the end.