My job as an artist, as I see it, is to understand and in some cases to take on various ways of thinking about people and the world that are different from my own, sometimes radically different.

You can't really go back to where you came from. I don't think any of us can.

Being an actor, imitating to the point of inhabiting the lives of others, may simply be a way of continuing to do what I learned to do as a boy - to travel, mentally and physically.

As Martin Luther King said, "Passively to participate in an unjust system is to accept that system and to participate in its evil."

For 'Hidalgo,' I just spent as much time around horses as I could, which made sense.

Like most people I can be lazy, so it's nice to have a goal or deadline or reason to work out. I feel better when I get to exercise, or when I'm outdoors. I like to hike, swim and run, and I love to play soccer.

When I make a movie, I don't break it down and analyze it. I could but it would get in the way of doing a job - on instinct based on all the research we did going in. you want to trust yourself and your director and your acting partners in the circumstances you're shooting. I don't like to have any kind of overview.