Had I done the movies that were offered to me in my prime, at the height of my career, I would have been alongside the likes of Denzel Washington. But, I chose not to do those movies.
He's my favorite! He wrote and produced, and starred in and cast all of his movies! Can you imagine? I get really excited when I talk about Charlie Chaplin.
Well, I started thinking about what you were saying about how your movies need to make a profit. Now, what is the one thing, if you put it in a movie, it'll be successful?
My wife says that stage acting is like being on a tightrope with no net, and being in the movies, there is a net - because you stop and go over it again. It's very technical and mechanical. On stage you're on your own.
As an actor, as much as I'm interested in how you make movies and TV shows, even as a kid, I've always hated making of featurettes and special features on DVDs. I think it breaks the spell.
I think the '70s are always inspiring to me. I was born then, so I have a lot of memories about how my parents were and what kinds of movies I was watching.
The reason I took Early Edition - besides the fact that I liked it - was that it enabled me to start a production company in New York City. It's a low-budget film company to produce and direct movies.
I'm an actor. And I guess I've done so many movies I've achieved some high visibility. But a star? I guess I still think of myself as kind of a worker ant.
We're into this barrage of pop culture - you know, TV, movies, the Internet. We become creatures that we've made up, made of certain different flotsam from pop culture and certain different personas that are in style.
How many movies do you see when you can say this director really knew what film he wanted to make? I can count them on the fingers of one hand.
You know, I was a huge fan of comedy and movies and TV growing up, and I was able to memorize and mimic a lot of things, not realizing that that meant I probably wanted to be an actor.
I guess you just feel like there's a whole story that's not being told in movies. You're only seeing the macho guy version of a story that from the woman's side, may be completely different.
I think I took my eye off the ball. From about 2005, 2006, 2007, I was out of it. I thought I could oversee movies and have it done for me, so to speak.
I want all my films to look distinctly different, like some other directors I admire. But in a way, I can't really take myself completely out of the movies I make.
I always wanted to get into the horror genre. I like scary movies. I want to go to the fan shows and sign posters with my head hanging by a thread like a B-movie actress.
I'm a student of the movies. I'm a student of all media. This is what I do, and I like to immerse myself in what's current and what's topical. And I find that I'm drawn to those things.
As an actor, the ambition is to play interesting characters. And in the indie genre world, the budgets are low. That allows me, as an actor, not to have a financial value behind my name, to justify me being in these bigger parts for these types of mo...
I think being snobby about the kind of storytelling people do, it just irks me. It irks me. And in fact, it's one of the things that drives me to make as many horror movies as I do.
And usually the studios they don't want you to have credit for your movies because they want to take credit for the movies because if you get credit for your movies they've got to pay you more.
I have nothing against these big CGI movies, but there are not enough of the other ones - the ones with stories about character that have a beginning, a middle and an end. I said that to a couple of studio heads and they said, 'That's novel.'
There are these creative shows, all on cable, that are just so daring and out there. That's the stuff I really want to be a part of, like with 'Sucker Punch' and 'Hangover 2.' Those movies didn't hold back. They really went for it.
