When I make a film I'm away from home for two to three months. So I want my kids to look at my films one day and say, I love his movies, I love his choices-because he loved them.
There are a lot of things that come to bear on movies now that I don't think are good for movies. They're trying to appeal to the biggest demographic and, when they do that, you sometimes flatten out.
I'm glad movies aren't going to please everybody, they can't. But what they have to be is recognisable. I don't equate myself with a master painter, but I think you can recognise my films.
I've never really broken this down before, but, in movies, you almost have no connection to fans. And if you do TV, you're kind of connected, but they know you as the TV name not your real name. If you do radio, there's more of a bond there. And then if you do a podcast it's like you're literally inside of your fans.
And I love Mel Brooks. My Dad loved his movies, too, they're awesome, the kind of thing that if you're in for ten minutes, you're in for two hours.
I mean, I kind of remember... I'm 36 now, so it's kind of hard for me to relate to what it was like when I was 25, or 24, but I do remember a period in time when that's how I defined who I was, by the music I listened to and the movies I went to.
I do like escapism. I like going to the movies on a Friday night and seeing something fun.
I want to make movies that pierce people's hearts and touch them in some way, even if it's just for the night while they're in the cinema in that moment, I want to bring actual tears to their eyes and goosebumps to their skin.
When we shoot 24, there are so many things I have to worry about, from the script to technical things to my performance, that I don't have a second to be bored or take anything for granted. We produce 24 hours of film a season, which is like making 12 movies.
There are a lot of movies I'd like to throw away. That's not to say that I went in with that attitude. Any film I ever started, I went in with all the hope and best intentions in the world, but some films just don't work.
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.