I go through phases where I'll overuse words. S.E. Hinton, who wrote The Outsiders - she and I have been in contact for the 50th anniversary of the book - and she said, "You still owe me the 10 dollars that we bet that you couldn't stop saying the word 'gnarly.'"

[Ed Lauter] was an actor's actor. I love working with that class of actor. You know, they come in, they do it, no bullshit. There's no artifice, there's no fanciness, they're just honest and tough and direct.

[The Specials ]was always going to be an underground, underdog kind of movie. But I love when people bring that up, because it's very early, vintage James Gunn.

['John F. Kennedy] movie is based on a massive best-selling book, which is always helpful. And then the script was amazing and answered my question, "Why this? Why now?" And the "why now" is that it's 50 years since the assassination, and the country needs to have and will have a conversation about that. And the "why this" is the construct, which I think is sort of ingenious.

It was a little company that released [Bad Influence], it was really ahead of its time... I'm really proud of it. And it's Curtis Hanson. He'd directed a small movie before that, but it was his first directorial work that really worked.

Sobriety was the greatest gift I ever gave myself. I don't put it on a platform. I don't campaign about it. It's just something that works for me. It enabled me to really connect with another human being - my wife, Sheryl - which I was never able to do before.

The universe works in mysterious ways and for me it worked out perfectly. With all respect to everybody else, Aaron Sorkin is and was The West Wing, full stop. There's no West Wing without him.