As an actor and as a person you come together with being in familiar territory although that has not been my whole life. That's been a part of it. I think a lot of people associate me with the west because of Sundance.
In fact, I think more broadly about what an audience requires, but I want an audience to be fascinated by the process of finding an answer, or finding out there isn't one.
If you stay in Beverly Hills too long, you become a Mercedes.
Any time I saw people treated unfairly because of race, creed, whatever - it struck a nerve.
I did not, like my children and people today, grow up with television as part of my life.
In 1973, I was shown a graphic of how dependent the United States was on nonrenewable resources like oil and coal and that little was being done to change that. It seemed irrefutable that we needed a change in direction or we'd be paying a huge price down the road. That's when I made a commitment to become a political activist.
I love making films more than anything, but it's tough.
I remember my dad came from Ireland and Scotland, and so he carried with him the fear of poverty. So when I wanted to break loose, it kind of made him very nervous.
I started as an actor in the theater playing a lot of character parts, and suddenly, I found myself in this place where it felt like I was getting locked into a kind of a stereotype, and it did bother me.
I've been able to carve out spaces for myself. At Sundance, I'm in the mountains - my property is private. I get on a horse and ride for three, four hours. Sometimes five. I get lost. But when I'm in, I'm in.
If you want to slice into America, it's pretty red, white, and blue in terms of how it goes about things, but there's a gray area there, and I've always been interested in where things are complicated.
I was blessed to look well and retain a youthful look but that was just genes. I was disappointed when critics started pointing out my wrinkles. I thought, you mean this is what it's gonna be about now? I'm not going to be permitted to be human?
The way you really find out about the performer's seriousness about the cause is how long they stay with it when the spotlight gets turned off. You see a lot of celebrities switch gears. They go from the environment to animal rights to obesity or whatever. That I don't have a lot of respect for.
I'm not much interested in sport just as sport. I wouldn't be interested in making a golf film or baseball or fishing film.
God, I just love baseball.
We've poisoned the air, the water, and the land. In our passion to control nature, things have gone out of control. Progress from now on has to mean something different. We're running out of resources and we are running out of time.
When I was about fifteen, I went to work at Yosemite National Park. It changed me forever. Nature had carved its own sculpture, and I was part of it, not the other way around.
I can't watch completed films - my wife makes fun of me.
People are finally able to look around and say, 'I can see the drought, I can see the rising sea levels, I can see the crops dying. Okay, now I get it.' It is finally beginning to sink in that there has been a lot of damage.
From my experience in my country, America over and over again takes itself right to the brink, it puts one foot over but it never goes over. It wakes up at the last minute and says woah, and then pulls back...
I guess the optimistic thing is that those people in Congress who are climate deniers, I think their time has run out.
Let's get something straight - I don't see myself as beautiful.
So what if my face is falling apart? I don't give a damn. Anyway, it gives me character. Everyone thinks that they can stay pretty forever but some come out of Beverly Hills surgeries looking scary to me.
You work like hell to get yourself ahead in the business. You could go anywhere before, and suddenly you can't go anywhere. It's like being a cartoon character.
Golf has become so manicured, so perfect. The greens, the fairways. I don't like golf carts. I like walking. Some clubs won't let you in unless you have a caddy and a cart.
