I always wanted to be a fireman, a cop, an Indian chief, a doctor, a lawyer. I always wanted to be all these things, so I am drawn to these kinds of characters.
Writing I think, out of what all of us do, writing is the hardest. You’re the only who start with nothing except what’s up here. You do that. It’s really hard I think, acting is not.
I don’t think that anyone learns anything. Well, I mean, you do always learn something if you have your eyes and ears open. You do learn something from every outing, every time that you go for it. But for me what actors do is interact and that’s why you have to do that.
I believe in helping the planet survive, and that includes reaching out to help some of the disappearing creatures whose habitats we’re destroying. It’s up to us to somehow reverse that trend. I don’t know how we’ll achieve it, but we need to.
I try to keep my mind active. I’m a solitaire and puzzle addict. I exercise religiously. I don’t do many things religiously and I’ve taken up golf to have something to do when I have nothing to do.
Our situation, with global warming and air quality and all of that, has gotten to be catastrophic.
I was raised in Mississippi, so heat and humidity is my bread and butter. It keeps me going. I can’t stand cold weather.
I don’t need any more press. I get enough when I work, but environmental causes is one place where you can get me to open my mouth. And put my foot in it if necessary. I think the only thing I do that gives me any bragging rights in terms of energy conservation is sailing. Just using wind power.
You do a movie. However long it lasts, it begins and it ends in a relatively short period of time. In a given period of time, let’s say a year, you can have three, four, or five different experiences which is exciting.
Marketing only really works with word of mouth.
Even through my good-looking youth, I wasn’t called on for any romantic parts, which is okay. What I was called on to do, I enjoyed doing. The funny thing about life is that if you live long enough, I think, you’ll get every wish you ever had. It’ll all come true.
Everybody works the same, but the preparation very often may be different. You cannot work differently. You have to say the words that were written on the page, and you have to make your marks. That’s the work.
I don’t have to do anything. The character is shaped on the page.
I think one of the things when you’re casting children is you’re also casting their parents.
Someone’s always going to come down on the side of the fence.
One universe, four forces, billions of galaxies. The precision and complexity of our world is enough to make even the famous cosmologist go just a little bit crazy. How does it all fit together? Is there a single, overarching design to the cosmos? And if we find it, will we glimpse the mind of God?
Race seems to me to be less and less a subject worth discussing.
I’m not a comedian. I don’t make things funny if they’re not funny. I don’t invent funny stuff.
My earrings are worth just enough to buy me a coffin if I die in a strange place. That was the reason why sailors used to wear them.
I got my first job as a card-carrying actor in New York in 1967. Before that, I was a very desperate wannabe.
I’m a firm believer that things happen as they should. The universe unfolds just as it’s supposed to.