The more space and emptiness you can create in yourself, then you can let the rest of the world come in and fill you up.

Sometimes I think of movie acting as advanced pretend.

Every couple of years we'll watch the movie and it's like watching home movies, seeing the ranch on-screen. But that movie Heaven's Gate, people are appreciating it more and more as time goes on.

There's lots of good movies where you feel that the dialogue could be improvised, but very little was. The "Big Lebowski" was like that where people say "oh, you know, that sounds so..." and we'd always go back and get every man, every ellipses in there the way these guys write it. Because not only is it saying what Michael wants the character to say but the way they all speak kind of creates this tone because it's not exactly real.

Making films is sort of like you're pulling off a magic trick. It's sort of like an illusion. It's not real but you want it to appear real, and all kinds of things go into that, from the clothes you're wearing to the make-up, to the light.

If you're like me, I get hooked into to-do lists, you know. I'll say I checked that off. Okay, I did that. And you have all these things you're doing.

One of the things that I find so exciting about life is that you're constantly surprised. You never know what's going to happen, and it's certainly like that making movies; every once in a while, one will come along that transcends all of your expectations.