I think my being such a nomad let me into acting. I was always having to create a new image whenever we moved.

I like the level of fame that I have. You get nice tables in restaurants sometimes, but fame isn't something that I find comfortable.

I can't control how people are going to react. I try not to worry about what I can't control.

I think my being such a nomad let me into acting. I was always having to create a new image whenever we moved.

Life is hard for everyone. That's why there's such a nice reward at the end of it.

Celebrity, to me, is not a thing to seek.

Genetics play a huge part in who we are. But we also have free will.

I get to do interesting roles and make a living.

I had to bring myself back down to being a normal person again.

I loved working with Meryl Streep twice and I've gotten to work with my friend Liam Neeson on several occasions.

I mean, I've been stupid in the past, and I've learned from that.

I think there's a down-to-earthness with Midwesterners and with people from the Midlands - which is where my family is from - in Ireland.

I would love, more than anything, to do an out-and-out farce with huge physical energy. Just because you're from the minimalist school, it doesn't mean you can't go big.

I'd sneak out of the house to meet girls at 3:30 a.m.

I'd wear clogs, short pants and ladies' bracelets. I created this aura for myself.

I'm not a city kind of guy. I'm happiest when I'm tromping through the woods. That's why I don't live in Los Angeles. Being physically away from Hollywood probably loses me a few jobs, but the best ones seek me out.

I'm not particularly a career-oriented guy. I'm lucky. I can make really interesting films much of the time with interesting people yet be anonymous, have a private life. But, I'd like to have the choice of the better roles.

Money is just something to be circulated.

My thing about looking good is that it should be the character. If I'm playing a character who's concerned about his body - an athlete, say - I'll get in shape. If I'm playing a character who doesn't or wouldn't, I don't. I almost never get in shape for a movie, even though I know it would be a good career move.

Really, most of us just focus on what's in front of us. We're too busy putting out the fires of everyday life.

Some actors actually think about what they're going to talk about during the interview - they read up and meditate and plan quotes and get all inspired. It's very smart, but it's so planned. I never think to do that.

There will come a day when the phone doesn't ring as much as it used to.

There's certainly more work for me in TV these days.

You have to make them laugh and then make them listen.

You should learn to be happy with what you have. Besides, the fact that I'm not a huge star has allowed me to pick and choose the roles I want to do, not the ones some person sitting in a studio office thinks I should do.

The family is where most of our joy comes from.

It was always part of the plan to move into acting.

Be where the acting is. I live in Houston. Dallas is 4 1/2 hours away. I let them know there's no difference.

My mother keeps things in perspective for me. She makes me realize that the acting I do and love is no more important than what one of my brothers does-he works in a shoe repair shop. If my career ever tapers off, I'll go to college.

In Hungary, acting is a career for which one fits himself as earnestly as one studies for a degree in medicine, law, or philosophy.

I think acting is about forgetting yourself in order to give the best of yourself. It's passing through you more than you're creating it. You're not the flower, but the vase which holds the flower.

In LA, too many people want to go the quickest route from A to B. Method acting offers them that.

I don't see it as a form of healing, because if you have wounds that are bleeding I don't think acting will ever get them to stop. But I find acting is a form of illumination.

Maybe I can't act, but I know the gimmicks. I studied acting all my life and know what's good for me.

I know that if I'd had to go and take an exam for acting, I wouldn't have got anywhere. You don't take exams for acting, you take your courage.

I'm not acting, but I am acting.

I've done a lot of acting. I'm not saying I'm the greatest, but I'd love to act, I'd love to sing.

I had a bonding problem when I went off and boxed for five years. I was over in Europe and Asia fighting because I wanted to do something different; I was tired of acting. But the thing is, when I was done doing that, I couldn't get a job.

Acting for me is not that quid pro quo.

If you're acting, then there's a prescribed way to behave; whereas in life there's no prescribed way. So acting feels like a comfortable way to get through the day.

When I was a kid, the idea of why I wanted acting to be the thing I do for the rest of my life was different. It was, Oh yeah, I'll get girls and be famous.

And then, I suppose, there's also a cinematic reality on top of that. Because it was extremely difficult to keep tabs on, it was quite confusing acting that.

I read. It's also nice for me to get involved in schoolwork, which is a totally different world than acting. It makes me feel like I am doing things that normal people are doing at my age.

It's a living, breathing thing, acting.

A few nights ago I went to a Hollywood screening of a small independent film made by Sally Kirkland, an old friend of mine who also did terrific job acting in it. There were other actors in it and they were all terrific.

Plastic surgery and breast implants are fine for people who want that, if it makes them feel better about who they are. But, it makes these people, actors especially, fantasy figures for a fantasy world. Acting is about being real being honest.

I don't see my dancing or acting as two separate things. I don't define them separately, so I can't say one has helped the other, It's all the same thing. More than anything I love being on stage and performing.

In any case, his judgment and set of values, acting alone or through his assistants, determine not only what is gold and what is dross but the design of the history which he creates out of the metal. The historian decides what is significant, and what is not.

It always surprised me that I was getting acting work.