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.

I can't imagine being quite as lucky at any other time - I certainly never have been before. That goes right down from my producing partners to people like Eddie Vedder. But the two things that make me feel that this was meant to be now and not before was that the story itself has more resonance today - I find it a more important story today than it was then - and Emile.

If there's anything disgusting about the movie business, it's the whoredom of my peers.

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

Well, it was interesting because when I was going to do it the first time in my head was Leonardo DiCaprio [for Chris] and Marlon Brando was going to play the character that Hal Holbrook eventually played. But then when it wasn't to be and there was no promise that it ever would be I think some part of me didn't want to attach specifics to it anymore - actors or anything else - because I wanted to see it made that much more badly.

I don't see myself as a different guy than I was ten years ago. I don't have aspirations to be. It's really about where you're putting your energies. That's changing a lot.

Putting something in a movie because it's in the news doesn't make it political to me. If you're not going outside the same old, same old, if you're not pushing the envelope, then you're not doing anything. A good movie is a political thing.