I used to do films for money earlier. I never knew what perception meant. I didn't give too much attention to scripts. It was either to buy a house or to buy a car. There was a certain frivolity to the way I used to pick up things. I wasn't taking my...
When my career first began, I didn't have children - so there's a whole lot of difference in the way I choose roles now. Not just films for my children, but how long I'm going to be away, and is Dad going to be home while I'm gone. That sort-of facto...
I grew up on film sets and I had a ball. It wouldn't have had nearly as much fun if my dad had been working behind a desk somewhere. I remember being on the set of 'The Godfather: Part III,' and all the kids were running around and doing crazy things...
I wanted to make a film about my dad, a sort of love letter, and explain what I understood of his cinema, which was so utopian. I also wanted to give the sense of his cinema, because they have never been very big box-office, but they were very influe...
That's a hobby of mine - to do whatever I can for unusual for-hire creative projects. I am waiting for someone to really challenge me - obviously I'm often approached to do film related work, but I would be very happy to design a bar or an amusement ...
The very phrase 'Oscar night' used to accelerate my pulse. For one thing - dating myself - it meant Bob Hope. He always had good, strong jokes, that faultless delivery, and always a new joke about his own films' failure - once again - to be honored.
Thank God for television. I've been able to consistently work in television even when people say, 'Oh my God, I haven't seen you since this film or that project.' At least I'm working. It's very difficult to get that next movie role. I'm grateful to ...
Films that score very high with test audiences generally tend to not be so great. But, there's a lot of money involved in making movies, and it's a way for people to reassure themselves, who have spent money, and it's also a way to work out how to ma...
For me, it's just about keeping the standards up. We're a small country, so we have to punch above our weight. I'm not a great man for doing something just because it's Irish, and you never know what's going to work. But as long as we keep the standa...
Mike Leigh taught me about making choices - as an actor, you choose between being honest and clever, and with Mike, it's always about being honest. I learned how to behave on a film set from Jim Broadbent. He was a great example of someone with a fan...
I'm a fan of Oliver Stone. I like his movies, I like his excess, and I think he has a great capacity for empathy and it comes out more powerfully in this movie than in any of his other films, even the formal 'I'm identifying with the underdog' movies...
I don't get that many scripts. Back in Australia, I've pretty much done my own shows and really no work outside of that. It's only now that I'm starting to read some Hollywood film scripts, and I've read some really great ones.
If you're sitting in your minivan, playing your computer animated films for your children in the back seat, is it the animation that's entertaining you as you drive and listen? No, it's the storytelling. That's why we put so much importance on story....
Theater is just so much more satisfying than film or television just because you deliver the whole thing from start to finish in one evening, and you can tell if people have enjoyed it or not. That's great to do every night to go in front of a full r...
All the great novels, all the great films, all the great dramas are fictions that actually tell us the truth about us or about human nature or about human situations without being tied into the minutia of documentary events. Otherwise we might as wel...
I have a great team. A lot of my focus every day is with my television and film career, directing and producing, and I guess you can say that my moonlighting gig is Tropfest. Obviously, when I am not working I am in the Tropfest office full-time.
My first job was on Broadway. Then I went into the Navy. When I came out of the Navy, I went back to Broadway and a friend of mine, Lauren Bacall, was in Hollywood filming with Humphrey Bogart. She told one of her producers I was great in my play, an...
I never thought of acting as a creative process. Christ, I used to go to the movies and see Brando talking like he was trying to sell shoes, and he was great. I thought anybody could do it. Then I tried it, and I got so uptight, I'm limited as to wha...
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...
Film is built for kinetic movement and crash and burn. It's a great tool for spectacles. But if it's not rooted to something a little higher, you're just kicking your butt around the corner. You can only take so much of that. You have to have some so...
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...
