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.
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.
All due respect and trying to be as modest as I can be, I am a dancer. But I don't think I would be on 'Dancing with the Stars,' mainly because I would be too shy.
The thing is doing it, that's what it's all about. Not in the results of it. After all what is a risk? It's a risk not to take risks. Otherwise, you can go stale and repeat yourself. I don't feel like a person who takes risks. Yet there's something within me that must provoke controversy because I find it wherever I go. Anybody who cares about what he does takes risks.
Is it possible to do something that that makes an audience uncomfortable, challenges them, makes them see things they're not used to? Here in these films [Salome the play and Salomaybe], I have the opportunity to say something about how I feel about things.
"To be or not to be is" [by William Shakespeare] beyond anything I can comprehend. I understand it on a superficial level, but the depth of it just boggles my mind. I think it's probably the greatest of all speeches ever written.
I don't think actors should ever expect to get a role, because the disappointment is too great. You've got to think of things as an opportunity. An audition's an opportunity to have an audience.
When [Julia Marie Pacino] was 5 or 6 years old, we were in an Italian restaurant, and these people came by the table and they would start talking to me, asking me for my autograph and she just went under the table.
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.
People are always asking me to do Shakespeare - at home, at colleges, on film locations, in restaurants. It's like playing a piece of music, getting all the notes. It's great therapy.
I found that speaking live to people, young people, about what I liked and what had been happening to me was very good for me. I was quite overtaken by success and fame. I was one of those types who responded to it in a negative way. It was not easy.
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.