I don't have any conscious memory of wanting to be an actor, but early on, there was something in my makeup that I felt comfortable with. Then when I was around five or six, I started going to the movies and gradually it dawned on me that I was like one of those people on the screen. And that was it. There was never any question or doubt about what I was going to do for a living.

George W Bush is like a bad comic working the crowd, a moron, if youll pardon the expression.

The Irish tell the story of a man who arrives at the gates of heaven and asks to be let in St. Peter says, “Of course, just show us your scars.” The man says, “I have no scars”. St. Peter says, “What a pity was there nothing worth fighting for”?

I think most actors rarely get the opportunity to play something really close to you and speaks to something you deeply believe.

I have been accused of being a traitor, and I have been accused of not supporting the military. Nothing could be further from the truth. The leaders are the ones who make the decisions. The soldiers do not have the choice. I support the soldiers as human beings.

Once you follow a path of nonviolence and social justice, it won't take you long before you come into conflict with the culture, with the society. You can't know what is at stake or how much it is going to cost you until you get in the game. That's the only way, and the level of cost is equal to the level of involvement.

Jim Dean and Elvis were the spokesmen for an entire generation. When I was in acting school in New York, years ago, there was a saying that if Marlon Brando changed the way people acted, then James Dean changed the way people lived. He was the greatest actor who ever lived. He was simply a genius.