I need a challenge. I need the intellectual stimulation. I'm a member of a community on each film, working in concert to try to bring an idea to life. It's a great job.

Am I grumpy? I might be. But I think maybe sometimes it's misinterpreted.

I think American films right now are suffering from an excess of scale. Lots of movies we're seeing now are more akin to video games than stories about human life and relationships. Twelve- to 20-year-olds are maybe the largest economic force in the US movie business. I'm not a very nostalgic person - but I enjoy a good story.

It doesn't matter to me whether I go back to outer space or not [while acting]. The job's the same and I don't have any sort of genre preferences. I'm looking for a good story and a good character, whether earthbound or not.

I prefer to be part of a positive statement. I'm not interested in the psyche of a serial killer. What I'm interested in is creating a situation in which people get some emotional exercise, which makes them feel like human beings and makes them understand that they are part of the human community with all its responsibilities.

I don't take trouble at all to conform a screenplay to my iconography. I don't say, "We can't do that - the audience wouldn't accept it." I try to take the limitations of what is required to play a leading character and then screw with them.

All I would tell people is to hold onto what was individual about themselves, not to allow their ambition for success to cause them to try to imitate the success of others. You've got to find it on your own terms.