One thing that was amazing about World War II was that everybody signed up for the duration plus six months. Fliers got to leave combat after 25 missions, or 35 missions, but other than that, you were in it. You were part of the great effort, until, oh boy, six months after it was over.
The nature of motion capture is only going to work for certain films. It’s not going to put any other type of movies out of business.
The same way that I know that I’ll never do a movie as good or as celebrated as ‘Forrest Gump,’ I know that I’ll never do a movie as bad as ‘Bonfire of the Vanities.’
The year I was born, 1956, was the peak year for babies being born, and there are more people essentially our age than anybody else. We could crush these new generations if we decided too.
There was a period of time in Los Angeles when I wondered if I was just going to lose everything.
My doctor said, ‘If you can weigh what you weighed in high school, you’ll essentially be healthy and not have Type 2 diabetes.’ Well, I’m gonna have Type 2 diabetes, because there is no way I can weigh as much as I did in high school.
Acting still rings my bell as much as it did in high school. Plus, I can now indulge my interests as a producer as well. My work is more fun than fun but, best of all, it’s still very scary. You are always walking some kind of high wire.
As a young man, even if I was going to see a play or a film by myself, I didn’t feel like I was alone. There was something that was unfolding up there that brought me into it. And I recognised that. For those two hours, it made me feel like I belonged to something really good.
But television, when I was doing it, was all about scoring. You had to make these jokes bang, do whatever you could to make the material really pop. And if it didn’t, there was something wrong with the material, or with you.
Prior to Saving Private Ryan I never worked with men. I was always working with some babe, and it was always about falling in love, and it just got turned around. I’m not looking for any particular kind of story. I wait until it comes across my desk.
I do not want to admit to the world that I can be a bad person. It is just that I don’t want anyone to have false expectations. Moviemaking is a harsh, volatile business, and unless you can be ruthless, too, there’s a good chance that you are going to disappear off the scene pretty quickly.
But the battles against loneliness that I fought when I was 16 are very different from those I fought when I was 27, and those are very different from the ones I fight at 44.
At the end of the day it’s got to be a good movie, it’s got to be a funny movie, and it’s got to make people think, ‘Hey, I couldn’t have spent my time any better.’
There is something basic about protecting land by taking it off the market. People should be able to enjoy where they live while at the same time protect the plants and animals around them.
I have gone through so many examinations of what a hero is, between the World War II stuff and the astronaut stuff.
As a boy Id often spend my days biking on riverbeds and arroyos and come home exhausted. I realize now how much I took for granted having the natural world so close at hand. It wasnt until I moved away, first to New York and then to Los Angeles, that I realized how much I missed the outdoors.
I always wanted to play Lestrade of Scotland Yard ’cause he’s a buffoon that gets to wear a uniform. I thought that would be fun.
Yeah! I got type-two diabetes! I’m sure there’s going to be some media scandal now, saying I got it because I gained and lost weight for movie parts or something – but I doubt that.
I had to say no to ‘Fantasy Island’ back when I was doing ‘Bosom Buddies.’
If you’re funny, if there’s something that makes you laugh, then every day’s going to be okay.