Well you know I've been fan of Tony Hillerman's books for years.

I think time is elastic. There are moments in my life that are many, many years ago and yet I can conjure them as though it's a second ago. And there are other things that happened maybe last week that seem like ages ago.

You have to realize that Mel [Gibson], he's a funny guy. He's got a wicked sense of humor.

He was definitely known as the foremost man killer in the West; however there's controversy about virtually every killing that he was known to have been involved in.

I'd met Harrison Ford before, but he was just finishing a meet with Jon Favreau and the other producers on the film, and we said "hello" as he walked out and I walked in and sat down and had this meeting with those guys. They basically described what they were looking for, and they thought that I brought a certain amount of authenticity to the genre, and would I want to take part? And I said, "Absolutely! I'd love to!"

One can't help but bring one's own personality into what one is doing, and it's certainly true of us actors and it's true of writers.

That was Robert Aldrich. And that [Emperor Of The North] was one of the only times I actually got a part in a movie in the conventional way: The role was there, I auditioned, I auditioned again, and then I actually did a full-fledged screen test, which they shot on a soundstage on the lot at 20th Century Fox. They put up a set, and Robert Aldrich actually directed me in this screen test.