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've been in plenty of situations where I thought the film would turn out one way or my performance would be looked at one way and it was an entirely different situation.

There is no reason why challenging themes and engaging stories have to be mutually exclusive - in fact, each can fuel the other.

I am a fan of movies and there is something about watching film that is burned into celluloid for all time that is now a piece of history. You go watch, being a fan of classic films and my children and their children are going to be watching these movies.

Samurai culture did exist really, for hundreds of years and the notion of people trying to create some sort of a moral code, the idea that there existed certain behaviors that could be celebrated and that could be operative in a life.

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