A lot of people will say, "Oh, I got into acting because I wanted to explore my craft." They're a bunch of liars, unless they're Sean Penn, DeNiro or my dad. For the rest of us it was all about chicks and money.
As a kid, as a young actor, I really wanted to pop. I wanted to create something different. I wanted to be Sean Penn, but I didn't have all the words to be Sean Penn. But I was trying to do something different in every role.
Politics - I still think it's a bunch of liars and a bunch of self-interest. It's not about the people: it's about themselves and their rise to power. They are voting on things based on whether they will have the support of the people when they vote next time. They don't have the balls to say, 'I believe in this. I don't care what happens.'
I remember when I was about 18, Sean Penn made a bet with me. He had just directed his first movie, and he's like, 'By the time you're 30, I will bet you $500 that you'll be sick of acting.' I'm still waiting to collect, because I'm not.
When I was a teenager, the actors I was really into were Mickey Rourke and Sean Penn. I saw 'Rumble Fish' on my 16th birthday, and around the same time, it was 'Falcon and the Snowman' and 'Bad Boys' from Sean Penn.
Sean Penn has announced his retirement from acting about 72 times.
A lot of guys and people in our society think that chicks just love dudes with money. Chicks love dudes who are successful who happen to have money - do you know what I mean? Chicks are attracted to dudes that are doing their own thing.
I got into rock-and-roll because I wanted the chicks. The Dixie Chicks.
I got to work with Robert DeNiro once and it was a strange experience. Gwyneth Paltrow and I were doing Great Expectations movie together and we were complaining about what a mediocre film experience it was. DeNiro showed up on set and all of a sudden the director got better, the director of photography got better - everybody got more interested and excited. DeNiro isn't waiting for other people to create the environment that he wants, he brings it along with him.
I heard about the project over a year before we began. My American agent said, 'Oh, you might want to read 'In Cold Blood' because they're talking about you for Capote, but the script's with Johnny Depp and Sean Penn at the moment.' So, these things take their time to dribble down the food chain.
I never had a thing for movie stars. I was into the guys who could transform. Sean Penn. Daniel Day-Lewis. The ones who privileged the craft.
I wanted Raging Bull. I wanted Casino. I got Rocky and Bullwinkle. But that's OK, because I still get to tell people I've worked with Robert DeNiro.
A lot of people say I've missed out on a lot because I started acting at such a young age. What's so obvious to me is that I actually was really lucky. I gained a lot and I got a head start in what I wanted to do in life. A lot of people in their late 20s, early 30s are just beginning to figure out where they want to go.
I'm acting for the same reasons I wanted to become a diplomat. I've thought about it a lot and concluded that I wanted to become a diplomat because it was a way to explore human nature. For the same reason that at one point in college, I wanted to be a sociologist.
Daniel Day-Lewis and Sean Penn to me are the two best actors of all time. I'm just glad to have the pleasure to be in an era that they're acting while I'm acting. They're probably the best actors in my mind.
Even though I wanted to be John Malkovich or Sean Penn when I was a kid, mostly I was a music nerd.
I got into the weights because I didn't want anybody messing with me. I wanted people to say, 'Oh, he's so big, I don't want to mess with him.' And second of all, I wanted to be great at football. I wanted to be the baddest dude around because I knew what it was like to not be.