I love to play real people... good people that I know the audience will get behind. It's the good people in the world that I gravitate to.

The Romans had, like other Pagan nations, a nature festival, called by them Saturnalia, and the Northern peoples had Yule; both celebrated the turn of the year from the death of winter to the life of spring - the winter solstice. As this was an auspicious change the festival was a very joyous one... The giving of presents and the burning of candles characterized it. Among the Northern people the lighting of a huge log in the houses of the great and with appropriate ceremonies was a feature.

My ass may be dumb, but I ain't no dumbass.

If you go into a comic book store, there are tons of Star Wars stories on the stand. There are lots of different stories to tell. Maybe George [Lucas] won't tell them. Maybe some kid, who's a Star Wars fan that's planning to go to film school, will call Lucas and say, 'I'd like to make a Star Wars film.' Then, they'll make one.

I walk the streets, take the train, it's real simple. Some actors create their own mythology: 'Oh, I'm so famous I can't go places, because I created this mythology that I'm so famous I can't go places.

I'm a character actor and that's what I do. All the roles that I've had have been mainly support roles, because character actors don't usually get the lead in movies. It rarely happens.

I met [ Samuel L. Jackson ] for the first time on The Today Show. He came out of an elevator. I was promoting A Mighty Wind and he was promoting something else. He said, "I hear we're going to be working together." I said, "On what?" He said, 'The Man.' I hadn't heard his name mentioned before. I made a few calls and found out he had the script and was interested. That was it.