O’Neill presents a very complex multi-layered kind of challenge. His characters are always deeply complex and, to a great extent, inaccessible.

What is that song that Willie Nelson sang? ‘Oh, the days dwindle down to a precious few.’ I think of that. No big deal. I’ve reached a stage in my life where I am content.

I had one of the best days of my life. I spent the afternoon with my two kids and my ex-wife at Serendipity. Then I came to the theater, and you know, I think I did the play the best I’ve ever done it.

A completely disrespectful photographer was asked to stop taking photographs, and then said, ‘I’ve got what I want. What are you going to do about it?’ How would you feel if somebody walked up and started taking your photograph? I don’t think you’d be very happy.

I think there’s a bit of the devil in everybody. There’s a bit of a priest in everybody, too, but I enjoyed playing the devil more. He was more fun.

I’m not a very gregarious person. I can’t bear attention being called to me in a public place, which is ridiculous in a business that pays you to be noticed.

Presents don’t really mean much to me. I don’t want to sound mawkish, but – it was the realization that I have a great many people in my life who really love me, and who I really love.

Not to oversimplify it, somebody once said a good rule of thumb in interpreting a character is to find the good in the bad people that you portray and the bad in the good.

And then, I suppose, there’s also a cinematic reality on top of that. Because it was extremely difficult to keep tabs on, it was quite confusing acting that.

It’s actually pretty complex, because there’s two levels of reality in the narrative. One is what really took place, and the other is Spider’s poisoned version of what took place.

It was either Voltaire or Charlie Sheen who said, ‘We are born alone. We live alone. We die alone. And anything in between that can give us the illusion that we’re not, we cling to.’

The only way you can continue to make artistic films is to make an occasional one of those. They kind of keep your marketability going to the extent that people will employ you.

From doing A Moon for the Misbegotten, I’ve learned that nobody’s love can save anybody else. There are people who want to die, and nothing or nobody will stop them. The only one who can save you is yourself.

I don’t think we’re living in great times for movies, to tell you the truth.

O’Neill presents a very complex multi-layered kind of challenge. His characters are always deeply complex and, to a great extent, inaccessible.

I would like to break out of this dark, brooding image, cause I’m actually not like that at all.

I thought to myself, there’s a man who gave up his life to serve others – to touch people in that way is probably the greatest thing you can do as a human being.