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I always considered myself as a character actor. I always try to be versatile to show different sides of human experience.
If you don't daydream and kind of plan things out in your imagination, you never get there. So you have to start someplace.
Look, Hollywood's a mecca, but it's not the final answer. You pick up a camera anyplace in the world, you can make a movie.
I can always grow a little bit, and try to do something different. So I'm always looking for what's out there - the potential.
Too many people think that economics is this subject that should wait until the university level. But it can't wait that long.
Smell that? You smell that? Napalm, son. Nothing else in the world smells like that. I love the smell of napalm in the morning.
We're all travelers in this world. From the sweet grass to the packing house. Birth 'til death. We travel between the eternities.
You get below the Mason-Dixon line and you have some of the best music, culture, the two races, the literature, and it's so rich.
I'd like to direct again, but that's really hard to get something and raise the money. It's difficult to find just the right thing.
I was fortunate in the last century to be in the two biggest hits film-wise, 'Godfather I' and 'Godfather II,' and 'Lonesome Dove.'
I was fortunate in the last century to be in the two biggest hits film-wise, "Godfather I" and "Godfather II," and "Lonesome Dove".
I wanted to show that crime doesn't pay. If you are saved and accept the Lord, you cannot use that as an excuse to avoid punishment.
The greatest king of Israel, King David, the author of the Psalms, sent a man out to die in battle so that he could sleep with his wife.
You gotta be careful with message movies. People say "What do you want people to take away from it?" I always say its totally individual.
I've always liked country music. It's a certain aspect of America that goes back to the British Isles and the influence is very native to America.
But for me, the challenge is how you turn a character into behavior. Once the director says 'action', you just try to live between those two worlds.
As long as they keep offering me some good parts and so forth - there are some parts out there that fit me pretty well - I'll keep going for a while.
Some Russian ballet master woman said there's no culture in America, but if you look you can find interesting stuff in this country, don't you think?
Way, way, way back I played a little bit, but I am definitely not a golfer. You know, it just takes too much time anyway during the course of the day.
My father's people... are from Fairfax in northern Virginia, just across the Mason-Dixon line. So it was an honour to play Lee, he was a great general.
I'll keep on acting 'til they wipe the drool. I like the business. I like to do different parts and diverse characters. I haven't lost my enthusiasm yet!
If I ended my career, I wouldn't mind doing a TV series if it was a western and I played a mute gunfighter so I wouldn't have to remember lines every week.
It's like kids playing house: 'You play the father, I'll play the mother.' You know, you dress up, you play, they pay, you go home. It's a game - acting's a game.
It's a cyclical thing. When they make one, everyone loves them. Different genres come around in succession. People always welcome the western. It's America's genre.
I think there are more good young actors now than ever. It's a medium that everyone wants to be connected with - it is such a hip medium going into the 21st century.
You really have to soak up the culture of the people to get it right. If you're making a fiction film, it's entertainment, but you want it to be as real as possible.
Sometimes you don't prepare much. I mean, when I did 'Lonesome Dove' way back I rode horses day and night for like three or four months, and that got me ready for that.
But I think there are more good young actors now than ever. It's a medium that everyone wants to be connected with - it is such a hip medium going into the 21st century.
I don't have many people showing up at my door. Very few people come out. When they do, I get a little suspicious. I live way up on a hill, way, way back in the country.
Well, it's like my movie, 'The Apostle.' Some people in the North don't get that movie. They think that, in the South, if you don't shout, you can't play one of those guys.
Stripping away artifice - it's the constant standard I aim for in acting, to approximate life. People talk about being bigger than life - but there's nothing bigger than life.
The money part is one of the most difficult things. Coppola always said I should do a tango movie. If it hadn't been for him, I don't know where we would have gotten the money.
The cultural contrast I saw between religions... Catholics have a lot of mediators, going through saints and Mary or whatever. Protestants in general say things to God directly.
Sometimes directors will hire you and say, 'Oh, we love your work.' And then they start to tell you how to do it. I say, 'Hey, man, back off. You hired me to do it. Let me do it.'
I am getting some good offers still. Some nice things are coming my way just as they always have, so unless I lose my inspiration or there is too much drool to wipe, I will keep going.
I'm getting good offers, as good as ever sometimes. I just finished a thing with Billy Bob Thornton that was the most unique part I've ever played in my life, in the most unique project.
What people don't understand about Sarah Palin is that she is a rancher's wife. From Alberta down to Texas I've known women like that: good common sense, bright and vilified by city people.
I love going to black churches, and I love some of these black preachers. The best preacher I ever saw in my life was a 93-year-old in a black church in Hamilton, Virginia. What a preacher!
I always figure from the cradle to the grave, we all have our individual journeys, and maybe my journey was a positive one and I accomplished certain things without stepping on too many toes.
Some people say, 'Do you have any theories on acting?' And I say, well maybe: I think you can start with zero and end with zero. You don't have to go anywhere, you don't have to go for the result.
I would like to ask each of you: Would you be in favor of some kind of education on birth control and if so, how would you use that as a possible solution to the ever present question of abortion.
You obviously don't have to be a murderer to play a murderer or you don't have to be a dictator to play a dictator. So, you're an actor. You come up with whatever you come up with to play that part.
The most solitary I ever felt was when I was living in New York. I used to live in Enrico Caruso's old apartment, and I had a special staircase that took me up to the roof. There was nobody up there.
Hollywood sometimes tends to patronize the interior of the United States. As Horton Foote used to say, the great Texas playwright, that a lot of people from New York don't know what goes on beyond the South Jersey Shore.
The tango is a very interior dance. It's not an exterior - it's not flashy and all over the floor. It's a very interior dance when you see the old guys dance in the clubs. I learned everything from the old guys in the clubs.
You know, Hollywood sometimes tends to patronize the interior of the United States. As Horton Foote used to say, the great Texas playwright, that a lot of people from New York don't know what goes on beyond the South Jersey Shore.
To me, real comedy comes out of behavior. It's the choices you make as an actor. It's never about, "I want to do a comedy script." I can't think of it that way. And besides, some of those movies, those comedy movies, I can't even watch them.
The idea is that one's temperament improves with age; that you learn to deal better with people and become more benevolent and loving. That's not necessarily true. I try to stay loose but sometimes the best thing to do is get yourself away and take a good nap.
I like the smell of toast. Coffee is okay, but I don't drink much coffee. But toast is a nice smell. You smell some toast coming from your kitchen in the morning, you know that you're involved in a domestic situation and the operation that's going on is pleasant.
I've always remembered something Sanford Meisner, my acting teacher, told us. When you create a character, it's like making a chair, except instead of making someting out of wood, you make it out of yourself. That's the actor's craft - using yourself to create a character.