My first film as an actor was 'Fast Times at Ridgemont High,' a glorious experience that spoiled me for future films.
Great actors try to dismiss all ideas from their conscious mind in order to provide an experience that is real.
I always considered myself as a character actor. I always try to be versatile to show different sides of human experience.
Working with big actors and realising that they were just normal people who've got an incredible talent was just a great experience.
I couldn't care less about actors' trailers and food on sets and stuff like that - I just want to act.
If you have the right actors and you can give them the freedom to explore, you've done a lot of your work as a director.
Your crew becomes your family and you trust the director and the other actors on the set, and it's a very safe place.
My family has always supported me completely and kept me grounded. I never got lost in child Hollywood actor weirdness.
And, you know, when you are a kid, everybody wants to be an actor. I think that everybody wants to be in show business, frankly.
I just went into this business for laughs. I guess I don't mind being an actor so much now.
Well, I was sort of a jack-of-all-trades in show business for a long time. I was a singer and a dancer and then I got a job as an actor.
An actor who knows his business ought to be able to make the London telephone directory sound enthralling.
I think the business affairs people at the studios get some kind of perverse satisfaction in finding the worst hotels for actors to stay in.
I think of myself more as a workhorse actor. It will be hot and cold and up and down, but no one will kick me out of the business.
And so I've always been fascinated by the technical end of theater, and a lot of my closest friends are not actors, but in the other end of the business.
It is a tough business but if you get yourself in a situation like I, you can maintain a career over many years. That, to me, is a successful actor.
I didn't go into this business to do action because I'm a classically trained actor. But I'm good at kicking and punching.
I think most actors jump at the chance to do something where the camera's on them all the time.
I've been in fights, but that doesn't make me cool or like a tough guy or more interesting actor, I'm not proud of it.
Unless it's a specific accent, or something about physicality you have to change, I am generally not such a conscious actor.
I've always wanted to be one of those actors who could change from character to character, like Daniel Day Lewis or Jeffrey Wright.
