I think early on I knew what I was going to do and it was based a lot on familiarity but it was also because I didn’t have a lot of skills. There was nothing I wanted t be. I didn’t want to be a doctor. I wanted to be in show business.

The best thing for me is, when I’m not working, is to be at home and to have a script or two scripts is better, and to be just walking around the house and just thinking about the lines.

Obviously an actor draws on his own experience.

I live sort of in the country and I like that. It’s very quiet, it’s beautiful.

Because if I don’t know my lines, I really don’t know what I’m doing.

My father passed away a couple of years ago, but he was very old. He was almost a 100 years old. And, you know, he had a very good life. He came to America and he had a good life.

One thing that’s happened to me is I’ve been around a long time and I’ve played a lot of villains and so forth. I think it had to do with, well one thing is that I looked younger than I was for a long time. Now I think I’m suddenly starting to play people’s father.

Acting has to do with saying it as if you meant it, so for me the words are always very important. It’s very important for me to know my lines, know them so well that I don’t have to think about them.

I don’t carry lucky charms, but I believe in those things.

No, improvising is wonderful. But, the thing is that you cannot improvise unless you know exactly what you’re doing.

I’ve never crashed a wedding. When I was a kid I, of course, used to crash parties. Crashing a wedding is difficult though because you have to have the suit, and you have to have information in case someone catches you. You have to know at least some names and something.

I think if you do something effectively whether you’re the lover or the comic or the action guy or the villain like I play; movies are very expensive to make. Chances are you’ll get asked to play that part again.

When I was a kid I joined the circus. I did that. It is true. But it’s not like you think. There was a guy, he had his own circus. His name was Carol Jacobs and he owned it. It was a small thing.

My favorite characters are the ones that are the most successful movies.

I try not to worry about things I can’t do anything about.

Everybody has to be a little lucky, I think.

The minute I start to talk about acting, I realize that I can’t. You know, it’s an abstract thing, a little bit mysterious even if you do it for a living.

And I think that when I play these villains, maybe what is different is that the audience sees me play these and they know that that’s Chris and he’s having fun and he knows that and he knows that and you know that and everybody knows that.

No, but way before that, I’ve been doing little dances in movies for years. Yeah, that was an amazing chance. You know, at my age to be able to do a music dance video, very unusual.

As an actor you become that lighting rod between the person who made the play and the audience.

Also for me it was different because I play a lot of villains and in this one I play a dad and I play a good guy, basically. He’s the Secretary of the Treasury. I never had a job like that.

I think early on I knew what I was going to do and it was based a lot on familiarity but it was also because I didn’t have a lot of skills. There was nothing I wanted t be. I didn’t want to be a doctor. I wanted to be in show business.

When videotape came so a lot of movies that I do have a kind of afterlife in video. Things where movies that I do would come and go; they still come and go but you can go rent them and see them on TV.

I’d love to do a character with a wife, a nice little house, a couple of kids, a dog, maybe a bit of singing, and no guns and no killing, but nobody offers me those kind of parts.

I think that if I had grown up and had been in show business and the movies twenty five, thirty years earlier, I think I would have made a lot more musical movies.

Yeah, well I’ve always played comedy. My background is musical comedy theatre and that’s really where my training is. As an actor, that’s my training.

I’ve made movies that we’re very successful that we’re a complete surprise, and I’ve made movies that I thought we’re going to be very successful that, you know.

I’m not much of an analyzer or a psychologist.

Also, I think there are huge reactions sometimes, which are also mysterious.

I think that weddings have probably been crashed since the beginning of time. Cavemen crashed them. You go to meet girls. It makes sense.

An actor really is a kind of intermediary between an audience and the piece, whether it’s a play or movie.

I think that sometimes when they see me in a movie they expect me to be something nasty. I mean, I play a lot of villains and you show up and they think maybe… That’s why it’s good to defy expectations sometimes.

They have a kind of Bob Hope and Bing Crosby thing going on.

I remember that. I was talking to him and I said how great it would be if actors had a tail because I have animals and a tail is so expressive. On a cat you can tell everything. You can tell if they’re annoyed. You can tell whether they’re scared.

I’ve made three musical movies which is pretty good considering that not many are made but I was lucky in other ways. I came along when independent movies were starting to boom.