Gary Cooper - the greatest listener in the world! And he used to answer in kind, which is wonderful because you don't see that anymore. People don't listen. They really don't.

We've all got a lot of catching up to do. I'm still learning how to act, for god's sake. When I see these old-timers on the Turner Classic Movies, I still get ideas, you know. That's where you really learn acting. If you really see some of these old boys working it and you say to yourself, "My God, if I could really do that that would be wonderful."

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.

I think you have to keep going. Otherwise, you know these fellas that say, "Boy I can't wait to retire. Boy, I'm going to be 65 years old, and I'm retiring and I'm quitting and that's it." Well, two weeks later they're saying to themselves, "What the hell am I gonna do?" And first thing you know they find themselves in a wheelchair or in a rocking chair going back and forth, back and forth, and that's the end of it. And suddenly you're dead.

A lot of people forget that today. They come to the point where you walk on a set and the first thing you know you're looking at the sound man and you're saying to yourself, "How the hell can they get any sound when nobody is talking!" They get all mumbly. You can't make out what they're saying! And you're 6 feet away from them! Whereas in the old-time movies, you hear them, you understand every word they're saying, and you didn't have to put on your loudspeaker.

The trick is not to become somebody else. You become somebody else when you're in front of a camera or when you're on stage. There are some people who carry it all the time. That, to me, is not acting.

The Navy has changed a great deal. Not that the officers of my day were bad, because I served under a lot of good officers, believe me. But there were a few bad ones, too.