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.

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.

I think that I've still not been successful at playing the role of the retired actor, and I'd like to work on that.

Yeah, I had actually tried to stop acting before I made Dead Man Walking.

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

I can make a better living as an actor than I can as a director. Though I certainly would prefer to be directing movies.

I'm not going to recommend recklessness but somewhere just short of it - testing yourself and proactively pursuing a rite of passage has become necessary because in western developed countries we've become very comfort-addicted.