I think that movies can help guide us through those experiences [the problems that are happening in our daily lives, the stresses between countries, the economy and global warming]. I think all art tries to grapple with, redefine, come to terms with, express what's happening now when it's working. You can be entertained, but you can also be stimulated to think about things.

It's a family that's loaded with grudges and passion. We come from a long line of robbers and highwaymen in Italy, you know. Killers, even.

That was one of the reasons why I wanted to tell the story of Colin Price. I saw someone in this fictionalized political character that was trying to do something important for his city. He meant well, but then you see that the human flaws had really derailed his past. It seems to be happening more and more in our country. I wanted to hold a mirror up to that.

Good science fiction is intelligent. It asks big questions that are on people's minds. It's not impossible. It has some sort of root in the abstract.

In the beginning my energy and passion for acting came from an almost punk rock need to express a lot of anger wherever that may have come from. As I got older, it became or is coming more from a place of wanting to use the craft to help others in some way, to hold a mirror up to the situations that we're going through, to actually be more cautious about the way that I use the power of film and to see if there's anything that I can do in the performances that will resonate in the public a similar string that's on people's minds and is on my mind. That way we have that relationship.

I would like to hook up with one of the great Japanese filmmakers, like the master that made Ringu, and I would like to take 'The Wicker Man' to Japan, except this time he's a ghost.

There's a fine line between the Method actor and the schizophrenic.