When I was 25, I was in a show called 'Bajour,' and I was going to leave the show because I couldn't breathe. I couldn't sing, and I couldn't do the basic dance steps I had to do. Fortunately, two actors in the production - who were also yoga instructors - taught me some breathing exercises, and my asthma was cured that day.

Ultimately, love conquers all, and gay or straight, don't we all want to believe that? I would that if this was to happen to me, and one of my kids had come and told me he or she was gay, I would say: If that's the only way you can live, then I love you.

Technically, I'm a knight. My family goes back a thousand years in the Naples area. We're a titled, noble people.

People see me in powerful roles. That's what people want to see. That's what I want to do.

I'm a warrior if you try to hurt my family. And anybody I see getting it in the neck out there, I'm right there to protect them. I'm a big, strong guy who knows what he's doing. I've stopped a lot of things in the street, stopped a lot of people from getting hurt.

There are many people who think I'm actually a gangster or a mafioso, largely because of 'Goodfella'.

Where the material is, that's where you go. I'm a workman: I go to work. I've done movies for nothing, literally nothing; I did 'Last I Heard' for next to nothing.