I had a 90-minute one-man show. I performed it and my life just exploded. Everything - my life just changed. Every writer, director, producer, studio head, movie star - they all wanted it. It was the hottest property since 'Rocky.'

My mother and father told me I was god. I was a good Italian boy who hung out with the same four guys. I was a little god.

The saddest thing in life is wasted talent, and the choices you make will shape your life forever.

I'm very proud of being Italian-American, but people don't realize that the mafia is just this aberration. The real community is built on the working man, the guy who's the cop, the fireman, the truck driver, the bus driver.

The key is you have to keep doing the right thing. Do the right thing and stay around long enough, and you'll keep getting parts. And if you don't, you write your own parts, which I'm lucky to do. It's like anything else: you get hot, you get cold, then you get hot again. You just keep working.

Italian-Americans are not the Mafia.

I thought that if no one was going to give me a great part - and it was very difficult to break into film, obviously - then I'd write one myself.