At MGM there was a script cage in the basement where they’d show rushes. And I thought to myself, “How do I get into the script cage and find out what my future is?” I climbed into the script cage one night and spent the whole night in there. I saw the bowels of MGM. I saw the studio scripts that the producers had seen; the writers had just handed them in. And I started thinking this is a chance to pick my own roles.

Democracy has now become corrupted by the nature of the funders.

I thought, better to get out while I'm still alive.

John Milius and Francis Ford Coppola and Oliver Stone - those guys are consummate filmmakers. They believe that you don't talk it, you show it. So when I find a role now, I try to find a visual way to tell what the character is about rather than trying to speak about it.

I'm not somebody who runs from the press. I'm not coy. I appreciate the press I've had over the years.

This is a business that I have always had the last laugh in.It has nothing to do with acting, it has to do with good karma.

There are a lot of self important people who make you believe they're artistes and high on the intelligence quotient and I've sat down and listened to them and just been bored.