I'm a firm believer that character is highly overrated. Character is a trick that we do with the audience's collusion.

That's pretty much what every scene is about, getting people to see your point of view. Sometimes you win, sometimes you lose.

Directors work 10 times harder than anyone else. Get paid a quarter.

The ratings system is so bogus and people know it. Fewer and fewer people care. The ratings board has sort of exposed itself. But my problem is, as a parent, there's this area of film that my daughters want to see. They're not my kind of films, I don't want to go see them, but I really want to know whether my daughters can see them or not. The morality of what the ratings board is doing now escapes me. I don't get it.

I think what all actors share is that, somewhere down in your solar plexus, there's this fear that you're not going to be able to come up with the goods, that this is the one movie where you're going to look like a fool, and they should have cast someone else. And you feel ugly, and you've got three chins, and you've gained too much weight, and you're losing your hair, and there are so many better actors who could do this. But if you've got chops, what you realize is that everybody feels that way, so just show up and do the job.

There are statistics out that say 20 year olds, 18 years olds think about sex 90 percent of the time. They only don't think about sex when they're eating, and that's rare.

I'm a big fan of rehearsal. I'm famous for pulling the cast together, not so much to formally rehearse, but just to run the lines. My theory of acting is that it takes all your attention just to stay in the moment, and keep your attention on the other person, and get him to do what you want him to do.