I was very ashamed of seeing a therapist because I thought only crazy people went, and then, after about nine years, I asked him, 'Well, was I really crazy?' And he nodded and said, 'You were but not any more.'

Wrestling and boxing is like Ping-Pong and rugby. There's no connection.

I had gotten injured during the boxing, and I was supposed to take several months off because I'd had a couple of concussions, and so I sort of just left the boxing and got into the acting by accident.

I spent so long studying really hard to become a fine actor, but threw it all away because I got the adulation and the fame so easily

Julian Schnabel painted a picture that he dedicated to my character in Rumble Fish. It was called The Motorcycle Boy. I remember when he brought it over to me at the Mayflower Hotel [in New York] years ago. This is when you and I knew each other.

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.

All I am hoping for is to be able to work-I think my best work is still ahead of me-I think all that I have been through in the last several years have only made me a better, more interesting actor.