I am so thrilled by the privilege of life, and yet at the same time I know that I have to let it go.

David Cronenberg knows what we actors do as artists.

I listen to XM radio because I can get so many overseas news stations.

But I am not going to live for ever. And the more I know it, the more amazed I am by being here at all.

I am so thrilled by the privilege of life, and yet at the same time I know that I have to let it go.

Being famous is not something that would make me feel successful - unless one was striving for mediocrity.

I know what I love about acting - and it's the creative process.

I think acting can bring you closer to yourself and help you understand other people.

What's really frustrating with movies is the lack of improvement.

I was held hostage and almost executed by a man who was robbing us in the middle of the night.

I've been delighted by Cannes and Toronto but I keep saying I don't know how good we're going to be received in America because that's where it's most challenging.

I need six weeks of rehearsal and women need nine months and it took me 15 years to figure that out.

I demand minimal for paid rehearsal and not always six weeks either.

It was the moment I learned acting is not acting out. After that light went on, I spent the rest of my life trying to figure out how to make other people realize it.

The thing is David is also aware of everything and it's not like you're going somewhere the director is not.

You have to create a track record of breaking your own mold, or at least other people's idea of that mold.

The thing is, I don't believe in most of what's done. The amount of financial and imaginative energy that's put into mediocrity is just amazing which I find to be fundamentally offensive as a human being.

Heroes to me are guys that sit in libraries. They absorb knowledge and then the risks they take are calculated on the basis of the courage it took to become replete with knowledge.

I want to prove a point. That point is, actors are artists, not narcissists necessarily.

The perfection in theater is that it's over the second it's done.

I just looked at him because I want to be looking in someone's eyes when I die.

I have a film I want to direct. Gena Rowlands was going to do it with me a long time ago. It's about an older woman who's running a ranch in the west the old fashioned way.

All I know is that my best work has come out of being committed and happy.

It just seems like that because I do a lot of independent films that don't get to the mainstream.

I very much prefer the balance in a scene to standing out and so you have to make a decision.

Being a father, being a friend, those are the things that make me feel successful.

People who have expertise or the luck to have rehearsal time with cameras have it over people who don't.

The simple fact of existence, of being aware that you are aware; this to me is the most astounding fact.

If you're lucky, and not a lot of actors are these days, you get the chance to create a character.

Not to be offensive, not to be capricious, not to be arbitrary, not to be neurotic, not to be an actor outer, you're just trying to get in and you're given so little time to get in gently, but it's always hard.

Great risks come in long term, tremendously assiduous, very courageous study.

I was a science fiction junkie for a long time.

Sometimes people call me a success for all the reasons that make me think I'm a failure.

Defeating fear is not a light switch. For most of us, it's daily work.

Every single second of extra time to work with other actors has definitely always, for me, paid off for the film. For the project. Every single extra heartbeat you could get, mutually considering the scene, was of benefit.

Fame... it's been a challenge, let's put it that way. It's a privilege and a responsibility, and I'm not sure I carried the responsibility well at times, which is embarrassing. And I've had to look and be disappointed in myself occasionally for how I behaved in some circumstances.

For as privileged an actor as I have been, TV as a standard is short shrift. They have to do it so quickly that they don't stop and take a look. They just shoot. So that's one of the reasons I typically stay away from it. I think art is an act of consideration, and if you're not considering, I don't think you're really doing mankind a favor.

I am constantly asked, 'What's the difference between acting in the theater and acting in film?' The only answer I can give is the space - you adapt to the space. But acting is acting.

I am just as comfortable in Britain and France as I am in America... but nowhere is perfect.

I am not a famous person at home - I'm just a guy here. I'm a father, I'm a companion, I'm a human being. I am not a public figure in my house; I am not a celebrity. I am not a famous person to myself - I am just a guy.

I didn't study interviews. I studied acting.

I don't have any artifacts of my profession in my house; the Oscar is in storage.

I don't put the truth in a cage. I try to find a way to release it.

I don't want my children to have to wade through the crap to get to the cream, you know. I want them to be aware that I struggled to live with and tell my truth, and that it was a decent thing.

I generally try to think of what it is I want to express and then find a way of expressing it.

I grew up in the South Pacific. Basically, my brothers were Guamanian. I spoke words of Guamanian long before I spoke words of English, and so I've seen a lot. You know, I've traveled in places where people don't have the benefits of American life. And so I've seen a lot of stuff.

I have never worked with anyone who I hold in higher esteem than Chris Menges. He's an absolute, bona fide, authentic artist.

I haven't planned a reaction on anything... If you do, you've screwed up.

I like to work. I'm glad; I'm privileged to have work.