I had been to New Mexico many times. I loved it. It's a very exotic, interesting, severely crazy environment. I don't know if I could live there all year. It's such an intense place.
Working hard is great, being lazy sometimes is great, but failed potential is the worst.
I'm 47, I have gray hair, and yet people still come up to me on the street who are in their twenties, who weren't even born when 'Singles' was made... well, they were pretty tiny, anyway... and they say, 'Oh, I love that movie.' And I always say, 'How OLD are you?'
I learned, especially from my mother, to respect the profession and take it seriously, but not take yourself too seriously.
I think people tend to live, whether they like it or not, influenced by what's next door to them.
The high desert has an effect on people. The place has a way of swallowing you up.
I just wanna get to the end of the day without it raining.
Most of us... are simply just trying to get through the day. And wait for those times in their life that are markers, that put things into relief. That's why we like movies and books so much.
I'm known as a kind of dramatic, serious, almost humorless actor and the fact is, I'm a funny guy, and I spend most of my life trying to find a lighter side of things, and on stage was given plenty of opportunity to do that.
In the editing room, 20 percent of the time you're using stuff from before the actor knew the camera was rolling or you're taking a line from somewhere else and putting it in his mouth.
As you get older, I think everyone feels that, no matter what the job: to try a hand at running the business as opposed to simply being an employee.
Most of the time for me, you're learning what not to do, as opposed to what to do. You never know what to do. I don't, especially in a work environment. You have a little formula yourself. But when I see a director do something I think, whatever he or she just said totally screwed that actor up and now they're worse. I'm never going to do that. I'm going to figure out something else. I want my movie to be good. And that's how it works.
In one way they make the movie something you can handle because it's character driven and it's slightly off center. That's what's attractive, but it also has the potential of being cutesy and sappy. I am so uninterested in that.
Do what you want I don't care. That's the thing to say to an actor. Most people don't understand that. Not to manipulate them. That's what you say to an actor. You got a problem with the whole environment in doing that? Fine, what are we going to do to make the scene work? Now you have someone on your side. Now you have someone working with you.
I know it's good when I see a smaller film get recognized because it means more publicity for them. Any way to get the word out, I'm just learning about this. The end of this distribution sentence is the scariest part, which is when you start producing and directing. Now the movies are a little more like your children. You now spent years of your life and then it just dumps in one day and you think what happened? It doesn't always happen.
Part of the advantage, and part of the result of trying to be a producer and director, are the practical things, you find. It's so advantageous to go to a place that you already have a feel for, a literal and spiritual familiarity.
What we do at its very, very best, at its very, very most, will shift us slightly in our seat. If only for two hours, great. If for the rest of our lives, even better.
I only made two studio movies, that was a long time ago and obviously I removed myself. I think some of that is geographical. I live in New York and I want to work there, it's as simple as that.
I tend to turn down roles that are too much like me, what I think is most like me anyhow, because I'm me all the time and I'm sick of it.
I make little movies, you know, they need all the help that they can get.
Directing is: you're overwhelmed the whole time. Your mind never stops. If you care about it. You wake up in the morning and you begin thinking about it and then you go to sleep at night and you're still thinking about it.
I know it's good when I see a smaller film get recognized because it means more publicity for them. When you start producing and directing the movies are a little more like your children.
