Ebon Moss-Bachrach cut his teeth on a handful of small-but-visible roles in A-list movies. Over coffee in Brooklyn, he talked about the long road to the top.

EBON MOSS-BACHRACH: I love working. I'm a hustling actor. I just finished a few days on the film Winter Solstice with Aaron Stanford.

LEETA HARDING: It all adds up.
EBON: I loved working on The Royal Tenenbaums —for the seven hours that I was there.

LEETA: It must be difficult to have a small part in a movie. You never really get a chance to bond with anyone.
EBON: It is difficult. I've also had small roles in The Believer and American Splendor. You're a day player. You walk onto a set with all these actors and fifty crewmembers, and you're not sure what the tone of the movie is. You're just in and out. It's my opinion that the photography department is the real star. You come in just hoping not to disappoint the DP.

LEETA: Is the acting itself intimidating for you?
EBON: That can be scary too. When you're a day player, you don't feel as entitled to ask questions as you would if you were going to be there longer. But when you get the chance, like with The Royal Tenenbaums, to see how Wes Anderson created this world where everyone's pants are a little too short —that's an education.

LEETA: Did you grow up wanting to be an actor?
EBON: As a kid, I existed in a fantasy world to a certain extent. I spent a lot of my childhood indoors, reading Isaac Asimov and Piers Anthony, and playing Dungeons and Dragons —all things you're not supposed to admit to people, right? Maybe it's because I'm from a tiny little farm town in western Massachusetts, right outside of Amherst.

LEETA: I think it's all very relevant. Kids can find clues to the outside world in these fantasy dimensions that they enter, especially if they grow up in rural environments.
EBON: The other thing I always did was play piano. But I hated it. I was made to play — my father and my grandmother are both musicians. When I got to high school, I spent a lot of time playing music with friends. Playing in bands changed everything for me. The act of collaborating was very seductive. The feeling of performing —the volatility of whatever is going on in the room, how terrifying and exciting that can be —is what drew me into acting.

LEETA: What did your high-school bands sound like?
EBON: We were kind of precocious country kids playing experimental jazz music. Ornette Coleman was a hero of mine.

LEETA: Were you listening to pop music, too?
EBON: That is the gaping hole in my cultural upbringing. I only know '80s music because I heard it on the school bus every morning.

LEETA: And then you played an '80s MTV director in American Splendor. It all comes full circle.
EBON: Yeah. My character was modeled after a guy from the band Flock of Seagulls. My musical ignorance came back to bite me on the ass.

LEETA: Do you think you'll move to LA eventually?
EBON: No. I've been doing okay just being here. I like being able to do plays, and I like the people in the city. There is more work for actors in LA, but I have the luxury of not having many mouths to feed yet.