On getting the SI cover: “I was just happy to do Sports Illustrated. To do something other than the fashion-y things, for something I respect, is much more fun.”

On his background in baseball: “It’s shameful how little I know about baseball…. I’m amazed they let me do this movie…. Baseball and I didn’t get along that well. I wrestled one year [in high school]. I dove one year. Everything but baseball.”

On what initially drew Brad to the Moneyball story: “I’m a sucker for the underdog story.”

On the end goal of the film: “What we were trying to do is tell an unconventional story in the Trojan horse of a conventional baseball movie.”

*Other athletes who have been on the cover of SI: Bob Hope, Stephen Colbert, Steve McQueen and Mark Wahlberg and Christian Bale, and Presidents Bill Clinton, John Kennedy, Gerald Ford and Ronald Reagan.