I call myself a character actor all my life. I've done a certain amount as a leading man, but character actors in my estimation - it's a lost art these days.

The Oscar made me a star, and I'm grateful. But I feel had I not won the Oscar I wouldn't have gotten into the messes I did in my personal life.

I call myself a character actor all my life. I've done a certain amount as a leading man, but character actors in my estimation - it's a lost art these days.

This is the kind of upbringing we had instead of sitting in front of a damn television set all day long and never answering to anybody else unless somebody spoke up from a television set. It's an altogether different way of living today that you wonder how it really affects the family? I know how it affects the family because I have my own son who has his children and also my daughter. It's one of those things. Everybody eats in their own way and off they go. You know? It's not family oriented anymore."

Today's work, I don't know it just doesn't make sense, a lot of it. It's just guns and sex and more guns and more sex. You say to yourself, when the hell are you gonna get down to the nitty-gritty and do something good so people can be entertained? I mean if they call this entertainment.

Every time you play one old-time picture along with today's kind of work, and they throw in the computers and the guns and the this and the that and the God-almighty, it gets to be a hassle and you wonder who the hell's doing what!

Every time I step in front of a camera I feel young again. I really do. It keeps your mind active and it keeps you going.