I wrote a letter to the magazine [Time magazine] pointing out that [Richard] Corliss's comparison of Christopher Lee's Saruman to Osama Bin Laden, and the vastly outnumbered defenders of Helm's Deep united against the Orcs to the "Coalition of the Willing" fighting the good fight against Muslim hordes, displayed the simplistic, xenophobic, and arrogant worldview that makes the government of the United States feared and mistrusted around the world. The editors claimed they had no space to print my brief letter, which I felt was dishonest and cowardly.

Travel is one of the best anti-war weapons that there are. I've been to Iran, and if you're there you see little kids, cops, old people, cemeteries. Once you see that, you can't say, 'Oh, Iran, let's bomb them.'

When people say that entertainers should "know your place," they might as well say the same thing about plumbers and teachers and cab drivers. We all should be able to express our views.

I've never had a problem with people paying attention to what you're doing and say they find that they liked it.

Sometimes you look at a movie and you can see that the actor or actress said, 'I'm taking this onboard because I'm making a ton of money, and not because it's going to be something special.'

Yes, I would agree that America, just like Spain was in the 17th Century, is the main empire of the world and they are the ones who, on the surface, are the most pushy: pushing their language, pushing their culture - or what there is of it - pushing by force their system on others.

I don't think you get to be pope without making some enemies, like you do when you're president.