In my first film, I was a basketball player. Like every good actor, I lied when they asked me if I could play.

In independent film you tend to have stories that involve more of a community, and the smaller characters are important to the story.

I've done scenes in films that I felt like the performance was better in certain takes, but they couldn't use them because it didn't match what the person was doing when they came around and the camera was on them.

I was stuck as a Boomer type in a lot of people's minds.

Home wasn't a pleasant place to live, growing up.

I have a DVD player and I have DVDs, and I have no time to watch any of them.

I try to do things I haven't been able to before.

It's great to be able to have your feet in both worlds. I wouldn't want to be just stuck in one or the other.

I've always tried to not let movie, television or theatre be all that my life is about. I've always tried to get involved in the community or my family now I have kids.

I don't care about the money. I just need, as an actor, to do as many different things that I can to make me feel good about myself.

I've tried to let the work I do speak.

In my first film, I was a basketball player. Like every good actor, I lied when they asked me if I could play.

I'm a very private person.

Everything is interesting to me.

I'm acting for the pleasure of it.

By the time I could have played football, I was already into acting and that's what I wanted to do.

With Sean Penn, he wants to be surprised. He doesn't necessarily want what he's written, although we'll do what he's written. He likes the danger of acting.

Film is a very intimate medium.

I don't even know what TV star means. I know there's a difference in how people approach you, compared to movies. They feel OK coming up to you and sitting with you in a restaurant, unfortunately.

I'm not sure I always feel like I'm in the seat. Sometimes I'm only holding on by one hand and flying out behind the roller coaster. I don't know anybody who doesn't feel that way.

I will be always grateful to NBC.

You get to the middle of a take that's going really well and the camera will run out of film. They have to stop you, apologize and then you've got to get things going all over again.

I don't like talking about myself. I'm not really interested in myself. One of the good things about being a supporting actor is that you get to talk about other people.

No matter how many people tell you, Save your money, when you've got a series, you never do. Somehow it doesn't seem important. Maybe it's because you've been without money for so long as an actor.

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.

Only a great actor finds the difficulties of the actor's art infinite.

Follow the wisdom of the great actor, James Cagney, you hit your mark, you look the other guy in the eye, and you tell the truth.

I was always a character actor. I just looked like Little Red Riding Hood.

In other words, I wouldn't like to be an actor if I could only be real. I like to get wild, behaviorally wild, and it's crazy to think of any form where it's just one way.

An actor entering through the door, you've got nothing. But if he enters through the window, you've got a situation.