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.

Normally, I love to go to the movies and when I see a character portrayed by different actors at different ages, it kind of pops a little bit for me. It brings me out of the movie experience. Now we have the technology to cure that.

I've done quite a few movies, I generally can feel that I'm not right for the role or a general fear if I can pull it off, and him giving that "tag" so to speak gave me the confidence. Like that Miles Davis line, "Don't worry about mistakes, there aren't any." Once you are the part, you're the guy, so you can't not be the guy because you're it.

You prep, you prep, you prep. And on the day that you film, you let all of that go. I try to achieve emptiness as much as possible - the Zen thing - to let the deal come out of that nothing.

I have a cycle that is not particularly cool, but it's a cycle: trash myself to reward myself.

I'm not counting any chickens.

You don't want to vilify your ego.