I'm usually nervous to meet people that I admire because what if they're not cool or something?
When I'm promoting a film, I'm not going to get caught up in anything else, and that includes all my personal things.
Have you ever gotten the feeling that you aren't completely embarassed yet, but you glimpse tomorrow's embarrassment?
People go for help, but their lives don't get better because of those [psychiatric] drugs. They get worse. They feel numb and they're told that's a good thing. It's how you degrade a society - by drugging the piss out of it.
Psychiatry is a pseudoscience.... You don't know the history of psychiatry. I do...Matt, Matt, Matt, Matt, Matt, Matt, you don't even -you're glib. You don't even know what Ritalin is.
I used to go to Maple Leafs games all the time when Nic shot To Die For here in Toronto. This is a great city. I love it here.
Of course [I believe in aliens]. Are you so arrogant as to believe we are alone in this universe?
I've never made a film that I didn't believe in, you know? However the picture turns out, I've always given everything to it. That's kind of how I approach life. I can't help it. There's no part-way with me on anything in any area of my life.
Every time I make a "Mission" movie or other films, people kind of look at me and go, "Well, now what? What's next?" I think there's always going to be another mountain. I think there's something always in store.
When I first started out all the attention could be a bit unnerving, especially when people stared. Now I find the best thing is to just relax. Being recognized is just something you have to get used to.
You can put the camera in places where you may not necessarily be able to put it there if I don't do the stunt. If it's character and it's storytelling, then we do it. We design the things around me. I don't do it just to do a stunt. It's storytelling for me and how I can best bring the audience into the action, bring the audience into the story. And that's how we always look at at.
I kept looking [at Katie] and thinking, 'This woman's amazing.' I'm happy that I'm with her. She's amazing, and I'd think the same of her even if she wasn't with me - she's just amazing.
I feel good about the fact that I finally found something I love. I never lived in one place for very long - that's the way my whole life has been. I was always packing and moving around, staying in Canada, Kentucky, Jersey, St. Louis - it all helped because I was always learning new accents, experiencing different environments.
As an actor - like an artist - you have to ask, "Why do I choose a certain moment to play something a certain way?" It's organic to who we are.
With each one, I love working on the story and the characters. The stunts, each time, we keep pushing ourselves harder and harder. And they are stunts, so there's always a danger in doing them, but fortunately, I have not had a problem. I have not missed a day of work, ever, in my career. I'm always there early. And I train very hard, and we prepare very carefully for each one.
What I find sometimes that is tricky is if actors are using too much of their own life in a picture, in a scene, they get locked into a particular way to play the scene, and it lacks an immediacy.
I've had such extremes in my life. From being this kind of wild kid, to one year studying to be a Franciscan priest at the seminary....I was very frustrated.
I structure the scripts and work on them on films and work on scenes with writers and but I haven't written a script myself, I really respect what they do and I'm fortunate I get to work with people that I really enjoy working with and we all kind of spitball and work together on these things, but I haven't written a script yet.
We knew from the beginning the level of commitment needed. We felt honored to work with Stanley Kubrick. We were going to do what it took to do this picture, whatever time, because I felt - and Nic [Nicole Kidman] did, too - that this was going to be a really special time for us. We knew it would be difficult. But I would have absolutely kicked myself if I hadn`t done this.
When you talk about emotional, chemical imbalances in people, there is no science behind that.
If I don’t talk about my religion, if I say I’m not discussing it or different humanitarian things I’m working on, they’re like, “He’s avoiding it.” If I do talk about it, it becomes, “Oh, he’s proselytizing.”
Talk is over-rated as a means of settling disputes
We live in a world in which we are able to communicate very quickly in many different ways, and yet we find communicating more difficult than ever. When in fact we need communication more urgently than ever, because the enemies that threaten us are universal: drugs, illiteracy and crime. We have to fight against them together.
On film Vanilla Sky: You're going to get the full experience of what love is.
Making a movie is like a chess game. It's about constantly changing patterns, adapting to new things. It's not just black and white, as you know.
