I tend to think of action movies as exuberant morality plays in which good triumphs over evil.

The only happy artist is a dead artist, because only then you can't change. After I die, I'll probably come back as a paintbrush.

The only thing that I haven't done is perform brain surgery on myself. I've been very, very lucky. I've spared Shakespeare undue stress by not doing that.

I made some truly awful movies. 'Stop! Or My Mom Will Shoot' was the worst. If you ever want someone to confess to murder just make him or her sit through that film. They will confess to anything after 15 minutes.

Nothing's harder than writing. There's no comparison. With directing, you can bounce a lot of ideas around. There's tremendous support - you've got editors and sound mixers. With writing, it's all you, and it's just crippling when people tear up your pages.

If I'd made it right away as an actor, I would've stopped at a certain level and stayed there, probably as a character actor.

Nothing is real if you don't believe in who you are!