Where I come from, being a hard man is being able to take a good beating and then get back up again and carry on fighting.

By the end of the shoot [of Wrestler], my trainer was pushing me up three flights of stairs to my house and holding my arm like I was an old cripple. I had three MRIs in the first two months of working on the film. I felt like it really was over by the time we started shooting the movie.

In boxing, you don't know what's going to happen. In wrestling, it's already prearranged.

Where I come from, being a hard man is being able to take a good beating and then get back up again and carry on fighting.

Years ago I realized that maybe I made mistake, politically, when I turned a lot of that stuff down. I would go off to obscure places and make movies that six people went to see.

I couldn't direct traffic. It's hard enough just acting.

I trained like an animal, but the thing is focus and concentration. When the bell rings it's like when the little red light goes on over the camera. And I can usually nail my lines on the first or second take because I'm right there.