I was one of those people who put too much emphasis on work and career and material possessions, and it took its toll on all my relationships, on my physical health, my emotional and mental health.
'Longtime Companion' was really the first movie that I know of that addressed the problem of AIDS. This was back in the '80s that we did this.
People change all the time.
I did some acting in high school and then a little more in college, and it just was the thing that I felt that I wanted to do more than anything else. And then I was fortunate enough to audition for and get into Yale Drama School right after college, and I spent three years there.
'Quick Change' was my first real movie. It was an interesting audition process because there were no lines in the script. Bill Murray's character would say something, and Geena Davis and Randy Quaid would say something, and then it would just say, 'The cabbie speaks.' How do you audition for that?
I've been so fortunate throughout my career, when I was doing theater - more theater than anything else - and when I was doing films, that I got a chance just to do a broad range of things.
I'm drawn to that period, the '50s.
My father came to the U.S. from Lebanon in 1920 when he was 8 without knowing a word of English. He traveled to Green Bay, Wis., married, bought a house, and he and my mom, Helen, raised 10 kids. Everything depended on his one-man business driving a truck.
And Big Night, I think by the end the brothers find that balance, when they touch each other on the shoulder over breakfast and it's understood that what should never have driven them apart almost drove them apart. I think that's a true moment.
I went to college on the East Coast in Portland, Maine.
I'm a very sensitive guy!
You're not really necessarily the coolest guy in their life. You are a conduit to the really cool people.
I come from a really big family, my father was a businessman and what he always instilled in us was to be your own boss. My father built up his business, and he was by no means a rich man, but he figured out how to work four-and-a-half days a week.
I still think of myself as a stage actor. When I do film and television I try to implement what I was taught to do in theatre, to try to stretch into characters that are far from myself.
All I wanted with that film was to represent the possibility that there might be normal people who are Muslim or Arab with the same fears, responsibilities, hopes.
With what's happened in the world the last three years, it's easier to see why it's become popular again to diminish and revile Arabs and Muslims in American popular culture.
I don't look as handsome in Men in Black 2 as I did in the first one.
I'm impossible to direct. I couldn't get myself to do anything.
It was really an experience, being my first time directing a movie. The scenes that I was in, Brooke really directed me all the time. And the scenes that both of us were in, Brooke directed those. Come to think of it, Brooke directed most of the scenes.
To my fellow nominees, whoever they are - I'm not that familiar with their work - I just want to say, there's always next year - except, you know, for Ray Romano .
