Matt Dillon’s “new favorite word is verisimilitude.” It’s not the cadence of the adjective that draws him in, though my own tongue twists while he mouths it with ease. It’s the getting at the truth that he’s after. “Big things happen to little people,” he says self-deprecatingly, his voice a deep baritone, lacking in pretension. At the age of fourteen while cutting class, Mr. Dillon was discovered by a casting director for the film, Over the Edge and subsequently cast in the lead role as Ritchie, a troubled teen.

Marc Forster is recalling a dream. When people relay their dreams, my face usually halts to a bemused, glassy stare while my brain picks through a shopping list of things I would rather do. Even a fleeting hallucination feels too private to print (though confidentially, his detailed description of a goat haunted me for days).