A large part of acting is just pretending. You get to work with these other great make-believers, all making believe as hard as they can.

I confessed to Mike [Cimino] a couple of days before we shot. I was like, "What am I doing here, Mike?" And Mike just looked at me, in that very directorial manor, took a long pause, and he said, "You know the game tag?" And I said, "Yeah." And he said, "Well, you're it." That was some of the best direction I think I've ever received.

That's one of the cool things about fame. You have an affect on society and where it goes.

I'm pretty critical of myself as far as reaching some sort of perfect bull's-eye or target that I'm aiming for.

Whenever I work on a part, I look at the world through the filter of the character and I pick things they might use through my observations of real life.

He [Michael Cimino] wasn't the typical filmmaker. I don't know if he had more in him, he certainly had a lot of scripts. I know he wrote a hell of a lot.

I look back at my filmography, and I'm pretty jazzed with the stuff I've been part of. They're all movies I'd like to see.