Quotes

[on if he prefers to play edgier twisted characters] Well, I've been cast as them... and I like to work, so I take those roles. You know, you try to be diverse, and try to have fun and round things out.

I'm formally trained, I don't know what classically trained really means. I've worked with Sanford Meisner. And I've worked at Circle Rep with Marshall W. Mason and Lanford Wilson and some really good people. I was lucky. I had a lot of really good influences.

I prefer film to the stage. I always like the rehearsal better than I like performing.

I'm a whore. If they have a check and camera and a script and stuff for me to say, I am mostly there, unless I just can't take it. No, really, I do like to work. It just depends on whether there is a whole lot of stuff for me to choose from, because if there is I am choosy. If there's not a lot of work, then I try to find some redeeming value in the parts being offered. If it is awful, then, of course, I can't do it. But I have to say, I am pretty lucky in that there are usually things coming in. That said, sometimes it is slow.

I am good when there is something central about the character. There is always a human theme I attach myself to. I am really looking for something that is moving or enlightening or something with depth as an actor. I look for these kinds of roles.

I am the type of person that once I make a decision, I must execute. Maybe I am a perfectionist in this way.

There is nothing wrong with horror films. Their existence has definitely had an impact on me. It is important to have scary demons in our world on film. We have them in the world. That is why we are afraid, it is nice to have a visual and to have a confrontation with it.

[To Michael Cimino during post production in Cổng Thiên Đường (1980)] I told Michael, you know man... This thing better be good, because if it isn't, they're gonna kill ya!

I couldn't sit through a scary movie myself to save my life. When I was young, I really loved Halloween and I loved to tell spooky stories, but that didn't last.

[on working with John Huston in Wise Blood (1979)] I was very scared and uncomfortable. I was the lead. I was insecure. I didn't think I could act my way out of a paper bag, you know. Oddly enough, he was the one who left me alone the most.

When I take a role, the criteria is feeding my family. That comes first. I have to work with what's available, like everybody else.

Being a character actor is a very insecure life. You don't always get to do what you want. I guess the reason I've held on is because I love it.

[on his acting style] Normally, the way I work is I try to learn everything kind of mechanically, without any feeling, and I let that come as it goes along. That's the way I was taught. After a certain amount of time, you get better and better and better and then it just comes. What you can do unconsciously, when it's an accident and you don't mean to do it, is the best stuff. All (acting) technique is based on when it's not working.

[on filming Fatal Beauty (1987)] (Director) Tom (Holland) and Whoopi (Goldberg) hated each other, it was a tense set. I've never seen two people hate each other more. I don't think she liked him from the get-go, and second of all Whoopi wanted to do an anti-drug film and that's not what the film was.

[on the difference working on big budget and low budget films] Well, when I'm working well, there's no difference at all, because I don't care. Except, you know, the place you go to after and in between is nicer, a lot of times. Independents can be the best experience of them all, because you know the crew better, you know the cinematographer better, everybody's a lot less pretentious... You have less time, because independents don't have any money, so they shoot very fast. It used to be different, independents used to have nice, long shooting schedules. It was very common; 13 or 14 weeks was a very common shooting schedule. Now six weeks is pretty average, and that's very fast to make a movie.

[on getting involved in acting] Well, my mother was an actress. She married my father and moved to West Virginia where my grandfather had built a factory, and that was the end of her career. When I was young, she used to read to us all. She read Huckleberry Finn, Tom Sawyer and King Arthur, and a bunch of really good books. She would always become all the characters; I just remember everything was very alive. I really felt I was wherever she said I was; she was very talented. She was in a play, and I went to a rehearsal and I watched her rehearse, she was doing Anastasia. She was incredible, and it just made me want to learn how to act.

I am good when there is something central about the character. There is always a human theme I attach myself to. I am really looking for something that is moving or enlightening or something with depth as an actor. I look for these kinds of roles.

We all have an edge. We all are floating our psyche on top with a great ocean underneath.

You know, you try to be diverse, and try to have fun and round things out.

If it's stage, the two most important artists are the actor and the playwright. If it's film, THE most important person is the director. The director says where the camera goes.

I don't want to be full of myself. I really have fun when I'm working, and I don't want to not have fun when I'm working, because I'm trying to convince myself that I'm somebody.

Gee, I certainly hope I'm not a scary person in real life. It's not like people run from me when they see me. People are usually pretty nice when they meet me. If they're scared, they keep their shuddering to themselves.

The universe is dynamic. When we are creative, we are the most alive and in touch with it. If it wasn't for the devil, we wouldn't be here, would we?

Of course, I would like to play the guy next door, but nobody's going to hire me for that kind of role.