I'm a good actor in that sense for directors because I always do what they say.

We hope to do the Spanish Tragedy based on the play by Thomas Kyd.

Because there is actually something very interesting in Goodfellas, how the style of the film changes as time goes by and based on the mental state of the protagonist.

Shakespeare, who is probably the greatest writer and poet of the English language, lived in a time that was politically very conservative and it's reflected in his writings.

That's my curse, I see the politics within these things and so I don't say yes to them.

So I had the worst experience at the very beginning, and things have been getting better since.

The greatest crime in a Shakespeare play is to murder the king.

I did not find my studies particularly enthralling.

Everybody gets a little dose of Shakespeare. He's the greatest playwright in the English language, but his politics are fairly square.

Sorry, but there is no pleasure in finding new ways of saying the same stuff about projects which tanked.

You'd never have a motorcycle policeman out on the Indian reservation.

I'd love to make another film in Mexico.

And Walker was made with a Mexican crew, although it was shot in Nicaragua.

I'm a good actor in that sense for directors because I always do what they say.

The future is always a dystopia in movies.

I don't think about Hollywood at all.

One of my contemporaries, a colorless chap who worked much harder at his law studies, is now Prime Minister.

The way that a handful of corporations in Los Angeles dictate how our stories are told creates a real poverty of imagination and it's a big problem.

Visual representation of it is essential if we're to come to terms with what it is we've done.

Unfortunately my career began in Hollywood, doing a negative pickup for Universal pictures.

Justin Salinger showed up one day with a pink cowboy hat on and everyone else got really annoyed because somehow he'd managed to get the pink cowboy hat.

In Goodfellas they have this one scene where the camera goes down some steps and walks through a kitchen into a restaurant and the critics were all over this as evidence of the genius of Scorsese and Scorsese is a genius.

The life of a repo man is always intense.

You can't change the system through violence.

It's always nice when the eccentrics show up.

No, I did a film called 'Death and the Compass' as well.

It's interesting actually, what's gone on with that footage, and also what happened with the footage from the war in Afghanistan, is that our news reporting is pretty much along the lines of pornography now.

And it says something about our level of disassociation, that we can provoke these wars abroad but we're not allowed to see people get killed as a result.

Yeah, I'd be happy to go back to Mexico or Japan to make another film.

My favorite actor is Wallace Beery.

I've been a very lucky actor.

I don't think I could be happy as an actor if there was a tyrant on the set.

When I was starting to get noticed as an actor in the 1970s for something other than the third cowboy on the right who ended up dying in every movie or episode, Burt Reynolds was the biggest star in the world.

Most parts that can be played by one actor can equally well be played by another, but not this.

I think, frankly, that I'm a better director than I was an actor.

I knew an actor's career goes up and down and back up again. Your standing in this business can't be your whole identity; otherwise, you're doomed.

I don't think any actor feels comfortable watching themselves in movies. You must be very narcissistic. The problem with your own opinion of yourself is that contrary to the normal spectators, when you watch a film you are in, you only watch yourself.

I don't think there has been any increase in sophistication in the audience. When people are aware of a concept that's easy to understand, and there's an actor who will attract them to the theater and it's a movie that's funny three-quarters of the time, it will be successful.

I never dreamed about being an actor, because that was out of reach. Coming from a small town that was big in farming, and also big in clothing factories, you don't dream about being a professional football player or an actor.

My goal was always to be recognized as a good actor but no one was interested in that, simply because society just wants to warm towards your appearance. This is the great blemish of society.

If you really do want to be an actor who can satisfy himself and his audience, you need to be vulnerable.

To be honest with you, when I got into this I never thought about reviews. I never thought about what people would say about me. I was just a young guy who was excited to become a comedian and an actor and I just wanted to get to do what I got to do.

It was very natural for me to want to disappear into dark theater, I am really very shy. That is something that people never seem to fully grasp because, when you are an actor, you are meant to be an exhibitionist.

I think that I've still not been successful at playing the role of the retired actor, and I'd like to work on that.

And once you cease to be a real person, you stop being a good actor.

When I decided I wanted to be an actor, I said I wanted to work with quality actors and directors.

There are roles I want that my agency might not want me to do because of the subject matter or whatever. Or there are roles that people won't bring to me because they don't think I'll do it. And that is a big strain because an actor wants to act.

Reality is, I'm an actor and an entertainer, and I really wouldn't know what to do with another profession.

I still feel like I'm trying to make it. It's hard to shed the struggling actor thing.