Most of the time I do feel like I need someone else when I'm alone. But I can still get by with just my own company and that makes me a stronger person.

I figure life's a gift and I don't intend on wasting it. You don't know what hand your gonna get dealt next. You learn to take life as it comes at you... to make each day count.

[Success] always starts with the material; it always starts with the truth and honesty of the characters that you read in the screenplay and that's rarely something that can be remedied if it's simply not there by the time you shoot the film. Thank God we had that.

I'm a big history buff so to walk the streets...the ancient world like that was pretty astounding.

The truth of the matter is this - I never look for films specifically, because ultimately if the fundamentals of the character and the script and the director aren't there, it makes it a moot point.

When I was doing 'This Boy's Life' I wanted to be as old as Robert DeNiro and as experienced as him and have the same respect as he did in that movie.

Since I was very young I've been fascinated with nature and I actually wanted to be a marine biologist when I was very young. That was a great passion of mine. So I suppose in the off season when I'm not making movies, I became more and more active as an environmentalist trying to be more vocal about issues that I felt were important.