Film is definitely a director's medium. They're responsible for the look and everything, and you're a part of that process as an actor, and you try to contribute to the story. But I think it might sound a little pretentious for me to say I think of myself as an artist. I think of myself as a creative person.

You know how they say we only use 10 percent of our brains? I think we only use 10 percent of our hearts.

I think of Terrence Malick's movie Days of Heaven - one of Richard Gere's first movies - you can push pause on almost any image in the movie and it looks like a painting.

You know, I sometimes think, how is anyone ever gonna come up with a book, or a painting, or a symphony, or a sculpture that can compete with a great city. You can't. Because you look around and every street, every boulevard, is its own special art form and when you think that in the cold, violent, meaningless universe that Paris exists, these lights. I mean come on, there's nothing happening on Jupiter or Neptune, but from way out in space you can see these lights, the cafés, people drinking and singing. For all we know, Paris is the hottest spot in the universe.

I care desperately about what I do. Do I know what product I'm selling? No. Do I know what I'm doing today? No. But I'm here, and I'm gonna give it my best shot.

I think the way it works is that when you're casting a movie, you usually want to work with people that you believe in.

I saw Ben Stiller's movie Walter Mitty [2013]; it's very beautiful. You look at some of the movies John Ford did with John Wayne and Jimmy Stewart, and then look at Remington and Ansel Adams, and I think you see a connection, certainly in the imagery of the West.