I remember one afternoon when we were out on a golf course somewhere, and Lauren Bacall, James Garner, and Jack Lemmon were sitting there in deck chairs when I went off to do another scene. And I said something like, "Hey, where have you guys been?" And they said, "Oh, we were down at the clubhouse. We saw your scene!" And Jack Lemmon looked at James Garner, and James Garner looked back at me, and then they both looked back at me and said in unison, "You bet your ass it is!" So I've been up there with the greats. I've had my fleeting moments with theatrical genius.

I did a film about child abuse with the great producer-director Richard Donner, Radio Flyer. Again, I was replacing somebody, but Lorraine Bracco was in it, and they wanted me as the cop in the thing to fall in love with Lorraine, but I said I wouldn't. I mean, I'm a cop, and she's ignoring that her kids are being beaten up by their stepfather. And we had an argument... well, not an argument, but a discussion about it. I said, "I just don't feel right. It's like you're taking everything away from the reality of the movie. Aren't you kind of idealizing this a little bit?

Paul Schrader, he's a... son of a gun. He's a very feisty, very straightforward guy. He's your auteur director. He sent me to a fat farm down in Palm Springs, I think it was, and got mad because he said, "You're just getting massages and backrubs!" He got the bill, he looked at the itemization, and he said, "You're not doing anything to lose weight! I could've had William Hurt for this part!" And I said, "Well, you're stuck with me, so..." He was funny, though.

Cutter's Way was a real test of my stupidity. Every day, it was like, who did I think I was? But people put up with me. But I considered myself an alcoholic, so I had the inside track on how an alcoholic would do this or that and so on and so forth. That became pretty annoying, I'm sure.

Griffin Dunne and I were both terrified that Martin Scorsese didn't think we were very good - and if he didn't think we were very good, that was it. That was the end of the line. If Martin Scorsese thinks you stink, you stink.

They killed me in The Sopranos. I went to David Chase, and I said, "Why me? I'm a detective! You can use me forever!" And he told me, "John, there's a rule in television: Somebody has to die that the audience likes."

Martin Scorsese was very much the actor's director. We were all very in awe of Martin Scorsese.