There is a segment of the American population that has been excluded from the national myth, and that should be redressed.

It seems that almost every time a valuable natural resource is discovered in the world-whether it be diamonds, rubber, gold, oil, whatever-often what results is a tragedy for the country in which they are found. Making matters worse, the resulting riches from these resources rarely benefit the people of the country from which they come.

To me this movie is about what is valuable. To one person it might be a stone; to someone else, a story in a magazine; to another, it is a child. The juxtaposition of one man obsessed with finding a valuable diamond with another man risking his life to find his son is the beating heart of this film.

I maintain that no movie can be funny enough. I mean even the most serious, even the most intense movie and I know enough about life to know in those dark moments inevitably someone will say something funny and I will be part of the whole experience.

You do these movies, you give it out to the world and you really have no idea how people are going to react to you.

I never thought about that ever throughout the entire course of my career about choosing a specific role because it would make me seem more man-like.

I have nothing against diamonds, or rubies or emeralds or sapphires. I do object when their acquisition is complicit in the debasement of children or the destruction of a country.