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.

I used to go to Vegas and play the horses, and then I realised how ridiculous that was. There is no winning in gambling, but there is on the stock market.

Nothing misleads people like the truth.

Fear - there's always fear. You re-create yourself in every movie, don't you?

At least George W. Bush feels like - and I've heard him say it - "You can't judge me now, because look at Abraham Lincoln. When he was in the middle of that war and 600,000 people died, he was vilified for the Gettysburg Address because they felt it was too short and almost insulting, and now you look back and it's considered one of the great speeches of all time and he's considered one of the great presidents of all time."

I do think, from the other side, that George W. ush was somewhat of an innocent in his thinking about what Ronald Reagan did during the Cold War and by bringing democracy to Eastern Europe. I think he believed that he could do the same thing by bringing democracy - or Midland, Texas, really - to the Middle East. I truly think he felt it was possible. "I want to do for the Middle East what Reagan did for the Soviet Union."

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.