Great actors are so easy to direct. It's like they're big 747s that you just have to move left and right, and I don't really need to direct. I need to put them in the right costume, with the right haircut, in the right location, and with the right ac...
I am a fan of the Coen brothers. I'm not a fanatic. I'm a big admirer. They create unique worlds, and there is a real atmosphere to their films. Not everyone can get that. That's a massive part of their appeal: you can recognise them. Like all the gr...
'Con Air' was kind of a turning point for me, in my mind. I never shot anybody in that movie - I never did anything bad - because there were so many bad guys in that movie. I said, 'The hell with this, I'm just gonna be a lovable guy.' I'm like Steve...
Something like Deckard Cain is great; it doesn't ruin your voice. But games that involve violence or battle or mutating and stuff like that really does take a toll on your voice. And I've even had to start to go to a voice guru kind of guy to do exer...
I don't call cut between the takes - it's my way to help the actor keep focused. As soon as you say 'cut' you have 10 people jumping on them and everybody's trying to do a great job, and they do, but sometimes they forget that the more important thin...
I've had problems with my eyes, and my legs hurt if I walk a great deal. That's due to very bad circulation. It's called claudication, and it's painful. So I have to stop if I'm walking, and pretending I'm looking in the window, so that I can rest th...
I discovered the fun of genre is... you get to explore your fears, and you get to use the metaphor of the genre - whether it's a giant monster or a... 12-year-old vampire. Whatever it is, you can sink something underneath the surface and make a perso...
There's just a feeling, when you're just an actor - I have great admiration for people who are just actors. I don't understand it, the idea of waiting to get cast, being at the whim of others. I find it incredibly powerless and frightening, so that's...
Cinema is a director's medium, so you're saying, 'What do you want?' Being an actor is about adapting - physically and emotionally. If that means you have to look great for it and they can make you look great, then thank you. And if you have to have ...
Even when you write it, someone's got to play it. So if you can play it and bypass all the rest of the things, you're still doing as great as someone that has spent forty years trying to find out how to do that. I'm really pro-human beings, pro-expre...
You get very comfortable doing the open mic circuit, turning up to the same places and playing to 20 people. In that situation, it won't matter if you aren't great on that night because no one will really remember who you are. Then suddenly you are d...
What I like about the third movie is you get to see a side of Carlisle you haven't seen before. You actually get to see what his vampire capabilities are because there's some great battle sequences. It's my favorite book. Carlisle is holding on to th...
Now that my wine has been served in the White House, why not me? Who could talk to farmers better than I? Somebody even asked me the other day if I had anything in my platform about taxes. 'Hell yes,' I said. 'Great state. But I wouldn't want to live...
Great storytellers in the past would go to an unknown land and return to tell the stories they've found. Those were also journeys into their inner psyches and that's still true today. An actor, a writer, does that as if saying, 'Here's what I've disc...
I was doing a play out in L.A. 20-some-odd years ago called 'Goose and Tomtom' by David Rabe, and somebody saw it and the next thing I know I'm doing the table read of the film version of 'Glengarry Glen Ross' with Al Pacino and Jack Lemmon - one of ...
I had been very impressed with the voiceover of 'Apocalypse Now,' with Martin Sheen's voice. That was a great voiceover; it really internalized the Martin Sheen character, who was essentially fairly low key and didn't say a lot during the whole movie...
It's a risk casting anyone against type or what they're known to do. But there's one thing better than having a great actor, which is having a great actor who's never done what you're asking him to do. He's hungry to get out of the trailer every day ...
In some instances, I don't care what people think. In other instances, I do - especially because of the stereotype. People take a look at me and say, 'She's cute. She's blond. She's an actress. She's a bimbo.' You know? So I take great pains to show ...
Screen is satisfying because it's so technical and mysterious. It's like playing roulette: you get a script, you think it's either great or naff, but you have no idea how it will really turn out. On stage, you are your own editor - and you get brief ...
I wish to Christ I could make up a really great lie. Sometimes, after an interview, I say to myself, 'Man, you were so honest - can't you have some fun? Can't you do some really down and dirty lying?' But the puritan in me thinks that if I tell a lie...
I have some good friends of my own who happen to be gay, and when it comes to gay, straight, or whatever, I'm for anything life-affirmative. I'm for gay power, straight power, male power, female power; everybody should feel empowered without oppressi...
