I've always paid attention to religion because I grew up in a religious background, but I've never felt a part of any of them. I think there's something to be drawn from most of them - other than goat sacrificing.
What occurred to me on [‘The Curious Case of Benjamin Button’], and also with the passing of her mother, is that there's going to come a time when I'm not going to get to be with this person anymore. I'm not going to get to be with my children anymore. Or friends, people I love and respect. And so, if we have a flare-up, it evaporates now. I don't want to waste time being angry at someone I love.
How many stories have you read that aren't true, stories about me and Angie being married or fighting or splitting up? And when we don't split up, there's a whole new round that we've made up and we're back together again!
I know when I go outside, there'll be a van or two and they'll probably follow us four out of seven days a week, trying to get something. But I'm just going across town and I know they're just wasting their day, so it doesn't bother me anymore.
I grew up on certain movies, particular movies that said something to me as a kid from Missouri, movies that showed me places I'd yet traveled, or different cultures, or explained something, or said something in a better way than I could ever say. I wanted to find the movies like that.
When I was a little kid we moved to Tulsa, then to St. Louis and, by the time I was in kindergarten, we lived in Springfield, Missouri. There I basically grew up.
It may be a brief interruption - just a few seconds - but what if someone sitting near you is trying to make a decent bootleg? Did you ever think of that? Now all those street-corner copies are permanently defiled by your so-called 'emergency.' Don't be so damn selfish.
Kids are dying from diarrhea ... that just shouldn't be in this day and age, and it's that kind of thing that needs to be changed. Enough is enough
Basically when you whittle everything away, I'm a grown man who puts on makeup.
The scouts [in "Moneyball"] could lend an authenticity that's even beyond what we had on the page.
I am very interested in architecture. I've been asked if I'd ever direct, but me, I'd rather build. It's very similar to directing, because you get to walk among this piece of art, to live in it, be surrounded by it, which is just thrilling.
We in America have some grand ideals - and some very strong ideals - but a lot of times, those ideals are used for marketing.
I dare make those comparisons, but we often said 'the making of' would be as interesting if not more interesting than the film.
I just take credit for being smart enough to find a guy as smart as Benett [Miller] to tell the story [of "Moneyball"].
Billy Beane was a guy who had been devalued by the sport as a player and now is working as a GM for a small-market team.There is such a gulf in what these teams have to spend on talent [that] they can never play equally - they can never have a true competition.
The choice or decision to take on a film certainly isn't calculated as far as doing something that will be successful against something that will have a smaller audience. It's all a gamble to me, I don't bet on the horses; I just go with the story that speaks to me and that I feel strongly about which is this one [The Assassination of Jesse James].
Though 'Moneyball' had the talents of screenwriters Steven Zaillian and Aaron Sorkin going for it, they weren't baseball insiders.
I come from the belief that all good films find their time whether it's on opening week or sometime later. That's certainly true with some of my favourite films that might relate to this [The Assassination of Jesse James] film in terms of cadence like Pat Garrett & Billy the Kid, or McCabe & Mrs Miller or Days of Heaven. I found them 10 to 20 years after they were made.
There are certain aspects of celebrity that I understand, although that's not the main point of the story [in Assassination of Jesse James] , but it is one of the by products. I certainly understand what its like to be hunted and have a bounty on my head but at least nobody is pointing guns at me.
[Robert] Ford had the idea that through fame he would receive some personal validity, but he didn't. I feel that these are not the main themes, but certainly themes that are at play in this film [Assassination of Jesse James].
I had the luxury of working on the script with Andrew [Dominik] for a good year before the film started, so I was already intimate with the story [of The Assassination of Jesse James] and felt quite prepared walking into it.
Jesse [James] was known as a kind of Robin Hood character and also it was known that his exploits were somewhat dubious - however, he perpetuated this myth. Our film [The Assassination of Jesse James] really takes place at the end of all that, the last year of his life, at the end of all that celebrity.
My main concern is quality and I think there is quality to be found in all categories of filmmaking.
I got into [producing] to be part of stories that wouldn't necessarily be right for me as an actor.