Actors are a lot like professors on dissertation committees - it's a lot of ego, a lot of rallying for position, there is a lot at stake in every single interaction.
Nobody in the world knew about Megan Fox until I found her and put her in 'Transformers.' I like to think that I've had some luck in building actors' careers with my films.
The Hollywood model is to develop scripts for 10 years, sell them, transfer them, attach this actor, then attach a director. This isn't what I'm about. I'm much more of a creator and a doer.
I'm unable to do the thing that Broadway actors do in plays, sometimes for years. The same exact blocking, the same exact lines. I'm a little bit uncomfortable with that. Every night I'm looking for ways to try something else.
Film, theater and television always kind of scared me. I don't ever seriously think of myself as an actor at all, and I don't plan any film career or television career.
I could have gone the route of a lot of these former child actors, but I didn't want that for myself. Like I said, when I was 14 years old, I decided to quit. I didn't ever want to do it again.
Let me put it this way: If you're sitting in a movie and you're watching me, and you say, 'Isn't that Michael Caine a wonderful actor?' then I've failed.
I much prefer the company of the crew, the sort of 'blue-collar working person.' I much more have that sensibility than what the public perceives as what a typical actor would have.
I like to take chances. The actors I admire are the ones who aren't afraid to make themselves nasty, bad or even goofy. I've never shied away from controversial characters.
I think every actor has their list of roles that were near misses. I've had my share. I was very close and almost cast in Philip Seymour Hoffman's 'Capote.'
Being an actor is just like being any other sort of self-employed person - we're all just happy to have a job in the first place, but we also thrive off the uncertainty of it.
The reason I've never gone for pilot season even as a younger actor, and wouldn't entertain that sort of thing now, is the idea of signing a piece of paper that binds me for six or seven years.
It's difficult working with very rich actors, because inevitably they become a little spoilt, and the managers and agents tend to control things more than is healthy.
I couldn't have left my career as an actor on a better note than to have done a cameo in the Lost In Space movie. Doing this part is the highlight of my career. What a way to leave the profession!
I've played some gangster roles, but that's obviously not me. When you're an Italian-American New York actor, it's just an easy way to get cast.
I wanted to just surround myself with people who I think are better than I am, whether they're actors or directors or producers, so that I could learn from them.
I think there will always be a double standard between males and females, so I think that an actress is more likely to protect her public persona, so to speak, than an actor would be.
A lot of actors, they know the camera's there, and if somebody moves around or makes noise or whatever then they get all distracted, but I pretty much lock in. You can't distract me too much.
I like actors very much, but to marry one would be like marrying your brother. You look too much alike in the mirror.
I heard that the same thing occurred in a scene in Alien, where the creature pops out of the chest of a crewman. The other actors didn't know what was to happen; the director wanted to get true surprise.
You know, I really wish now I'd had the nerve to become an actor. Because I'd have been Robert Redford, no question.
