I never started out to be an action actor. I was an ensemble actor.

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.

When boxers are in the ring, they're simple. It's when the fight is over, that's when the other fight, the real fight, begins. That's the problem.

You know what I think happened? After 'Rocky,' I was almost set up in the eyes of the media to make a flop.

The idea that boxing lends itself to cinema so well is because it's usually a morality play - good against evil, insecurity and triumph, fear strikes out, so the audience can really get drawn into the drama of it. Also, it was sensual and very primal. I think subliminaly we do two things - life is a fight, life is a struggle and we understand that from our early, early, early ancestors, and life is a race.

In a contest between me and a bulldog, you would say the bulldog is cuter.

Painting is as close as a person can get to actually capturing the heat of the moment.