I'd heard rumors about Oliver Stone before we went to work on and I don't get it. To me, he's one of the most sensitive directors. He is just fascinated by why people act in the ways that they do. His movies are an excuse to explore that idea, and he wants to work with people who are as passionate about exploring it as he is. So we got along brilliantly.

I have to tell you, you can't have an ego when you're an actor. A lot of actors have them, but in reality most of those people are just sensitive artists dying for a hug and a compliment.

We talked to Sergei Bodrov who did "Mongel" who I thought was incredible. There was a lot of people who've done a lot of things that I really appreciate and then you go back to the Italian spaghetti westerns that our spaghetti westerns were based off of so I've seen everything.

I grew up, especially as an actor thinking that I had to move to New York to be a good actor. But after a while you start to live the world a little bit and you start to appreciate where you're from.

In fact, I am so happy to be turning 40 and finally having a reason to take responsibility for my own behavior. It's also worked for me in terms of my physical appearance and emotional make-up and people entrusting me to bring the things a role deserves. I don't know whether that's depth or being a curmudgeon or what.

You might be an interested guy, an interested reported then I get to know you and then I know you're this also and you're this also and you may hide it in a certain way. That's what I love.

As an actor, doing it for 30 years, with every movie, you're trying to figure out a way to make it more naturalistic and more organic to humanity. When you have lines like, "Never let the monster out," it's hard.