It's hard for people to get their hands around fame, because it's heady stuff, and you have to look at it as being dangerous explosives, and you have to handle it with care.

I remember a meeting I had at MGM. It was at the end of their reign. They say we have you under contract, and because you’re under contract, we’d like to you to work. I said, well, that seems fair. But if it’s a really good movie, they were going to give it to a particular actor that was not under contract. The bottom line was they were going to pay you more if it was a bad one and pay you less if it was a good one.

When I said they'd scored two goals, of course I meant they'd scored one.

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!

I'm my own doctor. I have a group of people who call me up on a weekly basis. I'm a 'doctor' without a license.

Woody [Allen] is a fascinating character to be around. You don't really know what he's going to want. You're on your toes, but you're on your heels too, if you know what I mean.

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.