I started teaching when I was in my 20s because Lee Strasberg asked me to, and he didn't do that with a lot of people.
The more complicated the character, the better I am. It's the one-dimensional crap that I had to do for years that drove me crazy.
I look for roles where there is some kind of an arc to the story.
I create each character as an individual, coming from a certain place, sounding a certain way, having been introduced to things a certain way.
I've always been interested in science fiction.
A lot of the bad guys I've played just haven't had much dimension to them.
I did theatrical caricatures.
I was offered the Gene Hackman role in 'The Poseidon Adventure' four times, and I turned it down four times. I didn't want to do that movie. I called it the upside down boat.
I always tried to play the bad guys as guys who didn't know they were bad guys. There are villains we run into all the time, but they don't think they are doing anything wrong. If they do, they think they are cunning and smart. When people break laws and ethical rules, they justify it in their own terms.
They made a fatal mistake in doing 'Psycho' again. Why do that? Why revisit something that stands for itself?
Sergio Leone came to see me when I was doing 'Mission Impossible.' He wanted me to do 'A Fistful of Dollars.' I turned him down. I didn't want to get stuck as a stoic Western movie star.
I've always felt, pound for pound, I'm one of the best guys around; but you get stuck in people's eyes in a certain way, and it takes an imaginative director who will look at you and realize you can play different kinds of parts because you are an actor.
Nobody knew me. They just knew that I was the guy from 'Mission: Impossible.'
Agents have enormous power that studios relinquished to them. The studios, when I first came to Hollywood, that's where the power was.
When someone is there for you, has your back, that's somebody to pay attention to because that's a friend.
Everything that has happened to me is of value to me. As painful as certain things are, and have been, and were, there's a use for those things in my life and in my work.
I always treat each take as a rehearsal for the next take. That way you can find stuff and keep adding and playing until they tell me to stop.
I'm very proud of Space 1999. Its success paved the way for other sci-fi shows to follow. My hope is that the DVD release will help it reach a new generation of fans.
People think I'm a very serious actor, which I am. But you know, if you don't have a sense of humor doing what I do, you perish.
It's good to make people laugh.
