I had a kind of meandering little career, and then I was given a chance to play one of the bottom six in The Dirty Dozen.

You're always working in the movie. Never was I me, and never have I been me, nor was he him. We were the two characters. But the character that I was playing was informed by my DNA, looking at him informed by his.

When you look in the eyes of someone and that's what you look into, I knew him with my blood. It's not something you can actually ever get to, I don't think, without that. It was a huge gift, as an actor.

He doesn't translate well into our generation.

To them though, not to us, we were just a catalyst for their imagination.

I have never planned anything. I have been doing this job for over 50 years. I have been paid to work with some wonderful people and it has been a huge gift, to me.

We don't have that much time left to do it. I'm 80. I wanted to be Walter Huston to his John Huston. I wanted him to direct me, not in The Treasure of the Sierra Madre, but something. We'll see. We can't predict anything.