I started out as an actor, where you seek to understand yourself using the words of great writers and collaborating with other creative people. Then I slid into show business, where you seek only an audience’s approval whether you deserve it or not.
Acting in the theatre is fun; acting in film is work.
I went to Jimmy Gandolfini’s funeral, and when I was there, I realized Jimmy Gandolfini didn’t have Twitter.
As a lifelong Democrat, I never thought I’d lead an effort to defend the symbol of the Republican Party. But when I saw the cruelty that Ringling inflicts on elephants every day across the country, I had to speak up.
Am I a homophobe? Look, I work in show business. I am awash in gay people, as colleagues and as friends.
Nobody cares about your autograph. There are cameras everywhere, and there are media outlets for them to ‘file their story’.
Often in films, you have no idea where you’re going to be six months from now. And I grew very weary of that. And television, although it wasn’t necessarily as creatively diverse as filmmaking can be, it was the lifestyle choice that I needed to make.
People don’t understand this: if you want to have a really good shot at succeeding, there are doors you have to slam in people’s faces and say, ‘This is my priority, and you can’t depend on me to help you.’ I was never good at that.
I want to go make a movie and be very present for that and give it everything I have, and after we’re done, then the rest of the time is mine.
I worked all the time. Every moment I wasn’t working, I was home with my family. I got divorced. And now I’m doing it all over again, and I’ve learned that the key is, I’ve got to work less.
When you’re with someone, you want everything to be great. And that’s the pressure that you put on, and what you just can’t do.
I was in college in Washington, D.C. I did three years full-time. I did all my requirements, and my senior year was really a gut year. And I said, ‘Law school will always be there.’ I was in no hurry to get right into that.
I want my weekends back so I can be with my kids.
In the theater, you act more of the time. In the movies, you get to act maybe 20 or 30 minutes of the day. I love acting in movies. It’s just different.
I’m not an impressionist, per se, but if you do any kind of comedy – and they ask you to do that, most of the time – there’s some degree of appreciation, I think, involving somebody you like.
John McTiernan, the director, is not Ingmar Bergman. He does action-adventure movies.
I think I’m just like a lot of people who had nothing.
I just love Rome. It really does cast a spell on you.
I turned popular music on the radio, and I never listened to it again after that, in about 1985. That’s when I switched over to classical music, and I pretty much stayed with that since then.
My brothers and I grew up in a time where talking, storytelling, telling jokes was sometimes all you had. It wasn’t like today, with so many options and portability.
Everything that Bush touches turns to manure in public policy.
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