Reputations are maintained by the outside world, and they're created by it, too, by and large. And they serve as a hell of a device for privacy, because the more people look for something that's not there, the less chance they have of violating who you are. It's like going out there with a mask on, without having to exercise your upper body to put it on.

In between, I go broke because I seem to do movies where you're not paid a lot as an actor.

I had a house burn down once, and everything in life burned except my family, and it was so liberating. I didn't have a bad moment about it. It sort of reinvigorated my interest in a lot of things. I wonder if there should be some kind of anarchy.

If you can't count on your heart having some kind of unified response, you can't count on anything. You use your heart as a barometer for your movie's completeness.

The one thing you can count on in Hollywood - across the board - is cowardice.

The thing that's very close in the process is writing and acting, not directing. Directing's very different.

Sacrificing American soldiers or innocent civilians in an unprecedented preemptive attack on a separate sovereign nation may well prove itself a most temporary medicine.