The most difficult part of making movies is to keep making them. Maybe, you could make the biggest hit in the world, but then the big problem is what to do next and how to maintain devoted to a certain instinct that I have about films.
I'm just happy to be a film where for once I don't have to worry about my hair, because my managers are always complaining about my hair looking depressing in my movies. Which is true. I mean, it's true.
My mother told me I was begging her to be an actor when I was four. My father and my grandfather saw at least one or two movies a week; they were film buffs, so I guess it just rubbed off on me.
I've done all kinds of movies, but I wanna do some more independent films that are not your run-of-the-mill type movies like 'American Splendor', which I had a big part in, that are really trying to do something unique.
There have been 14 versions that I can find of Burke & Hare movies. They have all been horror films and all the movies have taken place in Victorian times, which doesn't make any sense.
Movies have these transcendent moments where everything is just right, from the dialogue to the music to the lighting to the narrative context; everything is just perfect, and something magical happens - the film breaks through the screen and does so...
The person that made me want to make movies, and the reason I do films, is Bruce Lee. He was an incredible actor, and he had a lot of charisma. Handsome, action, you know, everything was there. I loved Bruce Lee.
The movies that made me want to make movies were action movies, and thrillers, and Kurosawa films, you know, where you have an opportunity every day to shoot it in an unusual way. I was looking for something like that.
I started in theater; I did theater in New York for 14 years before I even thought about doing movies - I never thought about being in a film; it just never occurred to me.
Really interesting genre films, especially monster movies, evoke the fears of the times intentionally. Our starting point was 'Godzilla' - the original movie was released less than 10 years after Hiroshima, and it's a classic in Japan.
I knew nothing about the independent film industry. I didn't know much about the industry itself. All I knew was how to watch movies, how to enjoy them, how to hate them, how not to like them.
I think I've done pretty well. I've had about 46, or 47 nominations from my movies, and my films have won about 12 awards, so I don't have any complaints.
My retirement is both voluntary and involuntary. One reason, and this is voluntary, is the impact of television. All old movies are turning up on television, and frankly, making pictures doesn't interest me anymore. Another reason is that the film in...
I always shoot my movies with score as certainly part of the dialogue. Music is dialogue. People don't think about it that way, but music is actually dialogue. And sometimes music is the final, finished, additional dialogue. Music can be one of the f...
Because I was a kid from north of England, the only films I had access to was not alternative cinema, which in those days would be foreign cinema; I would be looking at all the Hollywood movies that arrived at my High Street.
I like doing films and I wish that I could do more but I still have to audition. I don't get offered starring roles in movies even though I've written and starred in a movie.
I really would have been stupid not to have done it. It was also a film that was actually happening, I mean, Miramax was doing it, and it had a kind of legitimacy to it. And once I read the script, I was there.
I'm always honored, but I think for every 100 of those that come along, one of them is actually going to happen. And, the fact that this was an offer on a major film that had a start date, was pretty impressive.
Well, filming in Hawaii, you know, is a blessing. It's one of the most beautiful places on this planet. It has a very mystic energy which informs you as an actor.
I am happy with all the films I've done. I have not become the victim of an image. I have managed to do different roles, and I am proud of that.
In England or America, actors do not have to cater to an image. In India, it is almost demanded of us. Very seldom do you get a film where you can walk away from your image.
