Clint Eastwood just runs an incredibly tight ship, but it's really laid back.

We're here for such a short time. When your great-great-grandkids study history, don't you want them to be proud that you were part of the solution?

Still, the change is nearly indescribable - going from total obscurity to walking down a street in New York and having everybody turn and look; to feel the temperature of a room change when I walked in.

I think it's still hard for me to turn down work if it's really good because for so many years I was desperate to get a job and couldn't, so I think it's anathema for me to turn down work if I think it's really good.

All you have in the end is to look back and like the choices you've made.

Being known as a writer did change the relationships I had with directors. The rap on actors is that they always want to inflate their parts. But when directors know you write screenplays and have a different view of things, you really get invited into the huddle in a much fuller way. And those collaborations end in friendships.

My mother is a professor of early childhood education. When I was two she would say she knew I was going to be an actor.