American Graffiti was the first movie where the director let me have any input. It was the first time anyone ever listened to me. George thought my character should have a crew cut, but I wasn't happy with that idea. I'd always had pretty long hair back then - in college, particularly - so I told George my character should wear a cowboy hat. George thought about it and he remembered a bunch of guys from Modesto, California, who cruised around, like my character, and wore cowboy hats, so it turned out that it actually fit the movie.

I think parenting is a huge responsibility. It was in my time when I was growing up and there still continues to be that responsibility.

I never feel sexy. I have a distant relationship with the mirror.

We have been led to believe that we have come a long way toward world nuclear disarmament. But that is not the case. Our government is not doing all that it could. We must urge our leaders to fulfill the obligations of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. The United States must assume world leadership to end once and for all the threat of nuclear war. It is our moral responsibility.

The job's always the same. It involves helping to tell the story and creating an alloy between character and story that serves the film.

I don't think nostalgia is very useful to me. There is a story to be told, there's behaviour to create or to bring to the screen that will help tell that story, and nostalgia is just not really a big part of my emotional package.

What I look for is identifying what the utility of a character is to the telling of the story overall. If I can identify that from reading the script, then I've got a clear idea of whether or not I think the character is worth playing.