If I find something and feel as though I can contribute to [it] in a way and feel I'm in it, whatever that means, I'm expressing something that I feel is a way to exercise my talent and help communicate a role as a human being in a movie, I will do that.
I didn't want the book [of memoirs] out, naturally - Larry [Grobel] knew that for 20 years, 15 at least, I didn't want anything written about me. Then, you know, things happen, finally it's OK and I trust Larry. Nothing about it is salacious in any way.
There was once a great actor named George C. Scott. He was on stage in the Delacourt Theater in Central Park, where they do Shakespeare every summer, and he was playing Shylock in The Merchant of Venice. At one point he took the robes he was wearing and just started flipping them up in the air, out of nowhere. And later, an actor said to him, "What was that, George, what were you doing?" And he said, "They were sleeping." You're always trying to catch them.
I was playing a part of someone dealing dope on a street corner - and there was a guy actually dealing heroin right there. I looked at him, he looked at me, and I got real confused.
Failure's relative. I've always felt, even early on, if I lose the freedom to fail, something's not right about that. It's how you treat failure, too. There's something to learn from it. I've had movies that have failed colossally, so you kind of analyze your failures: What kind of failure was it? A failure because it's misunderstood by others? A failure because you misunderstood it yourself?
I went back to the stage because it was my way of dealing with the success I had, my way of coping. It was a way of escaping the responsibilty of what was happening.
I understand the directors much more. I was always rebelling against them when I was a youngster, I didn't want to be told what to do. I had no identification.
It's never really that much fun for me to do movies anyway, because you - you know, you have to get up very early in the morning and you have to go in and you spend a lot of time waiting around.
It used to worry me what people said about me. I'm learning not to worry as much. Sometimes you feel critics are wrong all the time, but I don 't take objection to it, because that's the way it goes. They can be wrong, they can be right. They can be cruel, they can be kind.
I personally think if you're given four months instead of four weeks on a play, with the people who want to work that way, the play will invariably be different and stronger, and much more fulfilling and richer on all counts. There's no doubt in my mind about it.
I always had this thing, when I was younger especially, I didn't want to do movies that much. I found they took a lot out of you and they were exhausting for me in a lot of ways.