A lot of actors flame out.

There's so many characters they [studios] are not letting me play. And I thought, "Why don't you just go produce it yourself?".

When people realize you're not the stuffed shirt they think you are it's such a relief and you have people who really like to be around you.

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 realized that the studios didn't really understand their own system.

I'm not known as a singer, but in life I like to do things that are a bit beyond my reach to keep myself from slipping. I find that technology has made it so that we don't need to have a memory system, and as I get older I want to do things that challenge me. What could be more challenging than doing this show with a knee that's been replaced, after tearing my Achilles heel with a baker's cyst on the back of my knee? And then I have to try and dance!

After I got out of the studio system, I was completely [broke] for the 30th time; they said I’d never work again. So I’m going to go and produce those movies that they wouldn’t let me do.