I guess if I weren't an actor, I'd be a history professor.

I remember seeing Bill Hurt in New York once. I talked to him on the phone around 1988 and that's about it. I was shooting in New York and somebody said Glenn Close came by the set.

I like playing flawed characters, people who aren't perfect.

You can't think that you're playing a villain, or you'll end up with a cartoon. You have to think about him as a person and a hero.

We had training camp for a week, and we used the actual military drills of that period. We didn't have to work out much after hours, because going up and down hills all day was a good workout in itself.

Around mid-life everyone goes maniac a little bit.

I wrote a script. I actually enjoyed writing it more than acting. It's about the Irish rebellion of 1920, which is a fascinating period and place for me.

These days, you can do a TV series for five years and all of a sudden be on top of the business. Features don't even run in theaters very long anymore before going right to television.

I got to talking to an old actor, and he had a bunch of stories about the Rough Riders.

I was kind of confused. I thought, Well, if I get drafted, I'll go. Everybody was very concerned with it. I had friends who went. Some that came back and some that didn't.

I have family obligations and all that stuff. I get my kids six weeks in the summer, which is a real intense period of time. I'm with them every minute of the day.

I feel more comfortable doing films with groups of guys. It's a lot easier for me. There's a difference with women: you can't take them to dinner every night and go crazy.

I don't care about being a star. I can do a supporting role; I don't have to be a lead.

I'm probably satisfied with my career 80 percent of the time.

I've done about six comedies. Oddly enough, the script came to me from one of the guys in Platoon.

The Big Chill is one of those things that everybody can identify with. Between eight characters, they can pick somebody who's somewhat like them.

In this industry, the new owners prefer to kill anything they weren't responsible for.

I had already done a lot of research for Rough Riders, keeping notebooks and old photographs. Some of the books were antiques for that time period, with the covers falling off.

Take characters that Nicholson or De Niro play: they're not always tough.

To people outside, they think, Gee, that's great. You get to go here and there. The other side of that is our expression, This is location, not vacation.

I was so exhausted after fighting for the project for five years, shooting it was like the Bataan Death March.

I don't think a director should have any kids. I don't even think it's good for your physical health. Even guys in their 30s look exhausted because directors never get enough sleep. What I do is stressful enough.

Sometimes I think I'm real predictable to myself and other times... you always wonder, Is this really what I wanted to do? Did I make a mistake? Should I be doing something else?

I came in on the tail end of the old school of Hollywood.

My mother, sister and I watched through the windows as my father gambled.

Even my agents say, We don't know what this business is anymore.

Debra Winger doesn't let anything interfere with her performance, which is the way it should be.

I guess if I weren't an actor, I'd be a history professor.

This is all new to me, these re-releases. I don't know how these things do. I don't know if it will be people who saw it originally or young people.

There's a hysterical, tired sense of humor that comes after working 14 hours a day, six days a week. I like those things because they take the pressure off the constant stress.

Every other movie is one of those action things. I mean, 'Lost in Space'? A bunch of good actors running around shooting at special effects on a soundstage? I took my kids to see that and felt like I was on an acid trip.

While I was doing these plays in the beginning, I wasn't getting paid. I thought of it more as a hobby. Then I realized how seriously a lot of these people took what they were doing.

Rough Riders took 13 weeks to shoot, plus a week of training. The same guy trained us trained the cast in Platoon. Except, instead of radios, we used bugles to signal.

Most of what gets made now, you laugh your way through, go home and forget you've seen it.

I didn't know how to go about preparing for the part of someone who can't remember who he is. The frustration angle is written in, but there's also this incredible passive state.

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.