I crave working on those small independent movies because I love going to see those myself.
Lord of the Rings was my first experience making movies and at the time, I had no ideas how movies were done. I thought that's the way they're done, so in a way, I had nothing to compare it to.
The truth is - I found myself doing these huge action-adventure movies, and um, and which are cool man. And I really love doing them. And thankfully I haven't had too much dialogue, because if I had I would have really made a mess of it. You know what I mean?
Yeah, I mean the material, directors, the other cast, and if you think you can do something with the character then you do it and go from there. I am looking forward to doing some smaller movies.
I've done movies with a sword before. But I haven't really been given the full responsibility of something like a Ridley Scott film.
Movies like that aren't about the visual effects and explosions. They're human stories about family, about life, about death.
Just because you've made a couple movies, you've done some good movies, you've been nominated for some Academy Awards, whatever, nobody's entitled. It's a business. If they don't see it, I can think they're wrong, but I'm not entitled to a $15 million budget to make a film.
People wrestle sometimes making movies, and I think that conflict is a very essential thing. I think a lot of very happy productions have produced a lot of very banal movies.
There's this index that tallies up how much your movies have made, and if they haven't grossed a certain amount, then you're not bankable. I know I'm not Will Smith but, you know, my ranking's pretty low. The only studio picture I've done is 'Zodiac,' and that didn't perform that well.
I couldn't survive just doing independent movies. And I'd rather do modelling than movies or TV I didn't like.
I didn't know what types of movies I wanted to do. I want to do things that are different. I want to take my time with each role.
I just want to keep doing what I'm doing and hopefully people will watch my movies.
I grew up when I was 15 when I had my first opportunity in movies. I watched every great movie for a year and a half, and since then I've asked myself how I can emulate such artistry. That's really my motivation. I want to do something as good as my heroes have done.
I like to think the movies that I've picked have something worthwhile to say. Something relevant.
I loved old black and white movies, especially the Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers musicals. I loved everything about them - the songs, the music, the romance and the spectacle. They were real class and I knew that I wanted to be in that world.
I had a daughter who was 9 years old and I had the feeling I wasn't going to be a real parent if I didn't quit making movies for a while and spend time with her. I also felt that I'd made enough movies and said what I had to say at the time.
And if people come up and say they like the movies you're in, it's a great compliment.
Hollywood has the idea that movies have to be dumb. But especially movies for or about teenagers have to be really dumb!
I don't blame folks for not wanting to put me in their movies or whatever. I understand if their audiences had an association with me.
If the goal is to get the best artists, actors, and filmmakers in the world to create the best movies, Hollywood does a decent job. And I think no one would disagree with me that it also makes a ton of bad movies and employs a bunch of hacks.
I mean, movies in general tend to sort of portray time, space and identity as these very solid things. Time moves forward. Space is what it is. You are you, and you're always you.
Even today, in our progressive times, in most movies that come out, the men have to have biceps and the women have to be thin or something.
There's an absolute prejudice that good movies are dramas and comedies are more dismissable. But I couldn't disagree more.
I was a very interested arts student, I was always into that part of school and when I got into high school I went into architectural drafting. It gave me an understanding of how to build things and it's really helped me put things in perspective. With my music and my movies, to me it's all art.
A lot of people just go to movies that feed into their preexisting and not so noble needs and desires: They just go to action pictures, and things like that.
Class is often invisible in America in the movies, and usually not the subject of the film.
The movies that are made more thoughtfully or made or with more ambition often get just get drowned out by the noise.
When my mother got home from work, she would take me to the movies. It was her way of getting out, and she would take me with her. I'd go home and act all the parts. It had a tremendous influence on my becoming an actor.
It's never really that much fun for me to do movies anyway, because you - you know, you have to get up very early in the morning and you have to go in and you spend a lot of time waiting around.
My childhood was influenced by the roles my father played in his movies. Whether Abraham Lincoln or Tom Joad in the 'Grapes of Wrath,' his characters communicated certain values which I try to carry with me to this day.
I remember saying goodbye to my father the night he left to join the Navy. He didn't have to. He was older than other servicemen and had a family to support but he wanted to be a part of the fight against fascism, not just make movies about it. I admired this about him.
De Niro was a hero of mine. And Sean Penn. But I've realized I can't operate at that level of intensity. That's okay for movies. On TV, when you live with horror day in and day out, you have to protect yourself.
I rarely see one of the 'summer blockbuster' movies. I'd like to see a stronger focus on smaller, smarter movies.
I took acting classes in college, and once I graduated, I decided to give acting a shot when I couldn't really think of anything else to do. It took me a couple of years to get an agent, and my first big break was The Fanelli Boys, which was a sitcom on NBC. Then I did a few television movies.
I was watching 'Up In The Air' and I thought, 'Jesus, who's the old gray-haired guy?' And it was me. I never wear makeup for movies and now it's starting to show.
The physical part of comedy is as hard as a lot of action movies. It scares me, but in a way that I like.
My passion is doing movies, and as long as I keep doing that, I'll be happy. I want to do movies, fun roles and dramatic ones. I love all of it.
I'm fed up with the idiots... the ever-widening gap between people who know how to make movies and the people who green-light the movies.
I'm a weird big guy. Doing rapping, doing movies. Do a lot of stuff. But always do things the right way.
There really are three types of 'religious' movies: the ones that make fun of it, the ones that vilify it and the ones that literally preach to the converted.