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.

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.

The movies that are made more thoughtfully or made or with more ambition often get just get drowned out by the noise.

Movies absorb our attention more completely I think.

Class is often invisible in America in the movies and usually not the subject of the film.

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.

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.

There's an absolute prejudice that good movies are dramas and comedies are more dismissable. But I couldn't disagree more.

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.

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.