I was desperately unhappy with it [Blade Runner]. I was compelled by contract to record five or six different versions of the narration, each of which was found wanting on a storytelling basis. The final version was something that I was completely unhappy with. The movie obviously has a very strong following, but it could have been more than a cult picture.

What I observed about my fellow actors was that most gave up very easily.

I shaved my hairline back and dyed my hair and wore a little powder, a little paint, a fat suit, and I changed my voice, but the emotions were consistent with what the point of the scene [with Branch Rickey] was.

With the CGI, suddenly there's a thousand enemies instead of six - the army goes off into the horizon. You don't need that. The audience loses its relationship with the threat on the screen. That's something that's consistently happening and it makes these movies like video games and that's a soulless enterprise. It's all kinetics without emotion.

Acting was a way out at first. A way out of not knowing what to do, a way of focusing ambitions. And the ambition wasn't for fame. The ambition was to do an interesting job.

I was one of the few people who thought Star Wars was going to work, and I hadn't even seen any special effects.

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.