'Taxi Driver' was the best thing that ever happened to me, and I didn't become a weirdo and squawk like a chicken.
Acting, for me, is exhausting. I'm always more energized by directing. It's more intense to direct. I can pop in and express myself, then pop out again. It's a huge passion for me.
Most actors don't really have a director's sensibility. They have an actor's sensibility.
There's absolutely no sort of acknowledgment or reward for this - except for the intangible of my kids growing up to be wonderful people.
Going back and forth between the press and something like The Crucible must be really crazy and intense.
I can't imagine ever not doing [acting]. I would feel like I would have lost a limb. But I am older now, and sometimes I wonder who I would have been and what about me would have changed had I not had these experiences as a young person
I didn't grow up really wanting to be an actor. I don't remember ever not being an actor.
I look back at my career when I was younger and can connect what I was going through at the time with the characters I was playing. I see the similarities in them reflecting on my life.
I don't know if you've ever seen some of the Sidney Lumet movies, like Dog Day Afternoon [1975] or Network [1976]. They're real events that happen in real time, and there are all of these different characters experiencing the same thing in different parts of the movie ... I am so bad at explaining my films. But it's in the world of finance and the world of media, and how they connect. It was a big undertaking. A big, mainstream movie, which stars Julia Roberts and George Clooney. But for me, it's really just a small story about character and people.
I really did feel like I was surrounded by family members. I didn't have a dad, and I remember there were all these guys - in the old days, there were no women, except a makeup artist or, occasionally, a script supervisor. So there were just guys who taught me how to, you know, whittle wood, or how to pull focus, and what the camera was doing. And if I was being bratty, they'd sit me down and tell me. There were lots of rules about not being late and making sure that you didn't spill anything. So it felt a little bit like I was in a family.
