Everything that I've gone through informs me and my opinions in a way, I guess because I am a child of segregation. I lived through it. I lived in it. I was of it.

I kind of realize that I have a tendency to choose the kind of films I watched when I was a kid and would go home and pretend with my friends that we were in those movies after we saw them.

I enjoyed being at Jurassic Park, with Jeff Goldblum and Sir Richard Attenborough. It's funny, because Steven Spielberg would actually operate the camera sometimes. He'd consider the camera, and he'd be kind of looking at me. He actually shot a few of the things that I'm in, in that lab, with that long ash dangling off that cigarette. Hogging that fake cigarette. Because I had quit smoking, and he wanted to make sure I didn't go back, so he got me the worst-tasting fake cigarettes ever.

I like books. I've always got a literature book going. I'd be in there reading, in my off time.

Not everybody goes to movies to get their life changed.

Young guys don't tend to want to portray people who have frailties or are less than macho.

The thing I get the most [in public] is, 'Hey, Eugene.' You know what I mean? There's no catch phrase like: 'What a week I'm having.' People will actually just say, 'Hey, Eugene' or 'Hi, Eugene.' It's a great thing; they feel that comfortable calling me by my first name. It's not being forward. It depends how you say it. I think they can't help themselves. They think they know me. I find it gratifying.