The most important question in American cinema, I've learned, is 'When is lunch?'
Cormac McCarthy's language is perfect. He is in my view the greatest living American prose stylist.
The entire elementary school in Rotan, Texas, presented a theatrical production of 'Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs.' And the part of Sneezy fell to me.
No, I don't think about the myth of the West. It's not the kind of thinking I do. That's more suited to people who live in big towns on the West Coast or East Coast, people who stay under a roof, in a room, all the time.
There's an undeniable tradition of sexism in this country that ties into the move westward by people of European descent and different ways of looking at Manifest Destiny on the west side of the Mississippi River.
I play characters, and I try to play them in a manner that's appropriate to the script. Physical movement and vitality of language is part of character.
How do you play someone in a movie? How do you do that? It's impossible - unless you know how. How do you cut somebody open and take out their appendix and sew them back up and watch them get well? That's impossible - unless you know how.
Al Gore has been one of my closest friends since the day we met, on the first day of college, 35 years ago.
I've worked with more than 50 directors ,and I've paid attention since day one. That's pretty much been my education, apart from studying art history and shooting with my own cameras. I've seen 50 different sets of mistakes and 50 different ways of achieving. You just leave the bad part out.
I love cinema.
I think that no matter how much you don't like yourself or the drama of your life you can still find some comedy in it.
You are going to grow up whether you want to or not. It requires no effort.
I look upon pride as a sin.
Acting is fun for me and it doesn't really matter how, whether it's hard work or easy work, it's always fun.
I don't fight anybody anytime or anywhere.
If military movies were automatically successful we'd make nothing but military movies. But seriously, patriotism is one thing that all Americans have in common.
I don't play just villains. I like to have parts that are not simply villains.
I don't get it. If you're saying, Tommy Lee, you don't fit the image of the East Coast, social elitist wealthy people who comprise Harvard, the only thing I can say is you have no idea what comprises Harvard.
What appeals to me? There are things, points of view, uses of the language, habits of dress, ways of thought and believing that came to me from my grandparents and came to them from theirs. Things that are of good use in any situation, no matter what the future may hold.
My idea in terms of managing a narrative, or in thinking in my creative life, is that you could easily argue that the past, the present and the future all occur simultaneously, and if you can postulate that, then you're not strictly bound to a linear narrative.
