Sometimes you have a period piece where you have to research around it but, if the writers have done their homework well enough, the information is all in the script.

I like to stay home with my family.

The criteria [to take or refuse the role] is that I would love to have some kind of dialogue or communication with the director. I need to understand that we can communicate and that we like communication. That's something I have to have a strong feeling about. Secondly, I have to find the script intriguing or interesting. I don't have to understand the whole script, but I do have to find it intriguing. If those two things are present, that would probably be a yes.

If you're not bruised up, then you're not doing an action film in a real way.

Yeah, I do all the stuff I can. Let’s be frank, if you are in an action film, you are not in it for the characters, you are in it for the action – the stunts. If they take that away from you, it’s a sad story. Ha ha! I have damaged everything: knees, elbows, ribs. But I’m an old gymnast. I know how to survive.

I think 40 years ago, it would have been a little bit different because people had a tendency to think the actor was their part. I do find people who, all of a sudden, realize who is sitting in the restaurant and the first thing they react on is not necessarily, "There's that actor," but it's, "There's that killer guy."

Actors are very good at not revealing anything, so they're safe.