It’s easy to be a movie star. The shoes are already there. They just put you in the shoes.

I don’t have a problem with fame. I got into this business intending to be very successful, but I wanted it to be at my price.

Now, being on the cover of Vanity Fair is as important as being in great movies. The lines are very, very blurred.

I think that’s what I really liked about Narc: My character has a real operatic range in a way that older movies used to have.

I was making a lot of independent movies before the independent movement.

When you look at some of the most respected actors there are and the crap that they’re in… it didn’t used to be that way.

If I was coming into the business today, I wouldn’t be in it. Knowing what I know, absolutely not.

Everybody acts like they’re in a movie in most movies. That’s why they stink.

I have a problem with the blatant celebrity exhibitionism that happens in this business and being sold purely as a brand.

I would never do something like Speed 2 again. If I’d wanted to make those kind of movies I could have signed up for five of them while it was in the can. It wasn’t worth it to me. That was just an innocuous, boring movie.

It’s easy to be a movie star. The shoes are already there. They just put you in the shoes.

I don’t find movies interesting. I just want to do the movies that made me interested in getting into movies, and they’re few and far between.

Mostly I do films that mainstream Hollywood wouldn’t touch.

I try to stay under the radar.

It’s interesting to help someone find their vocabulary. There would not have been a De Niro without a Scorsese.

You know how many movies it took Tom Cruise before he was making 5, 6 million dollars? It probably took a billion dollars in box office.

I think The Exorcist is the best American horror movie ever made. Friedkin was at the top of his game.

I never turned down a movie because they wouldn’t give me enough money.

Training Day was such a Hollywood movie; I didn’t like it.

Pacino’s always played the suffering prince. I just find that interesting.

I really tried to make movies I wanted to see. I thought that if I was good enough, somebody would always need me.

I have all this time between projects, and I’m not so sure that’s a healthy thing. It’s scary, because at 36 I’m woefully unqualified for anything else.

I don’t like people who use the press to advance themselves in a way that they haven’t earned as an actor, performer or director.

When actors talk about research, they’re just patting themselves on the back.

I made three movies in 1995 and I was unhappy with all of them: Sleepers, Incognito, and Speed 2.

You can take a handful of dollars, a good story, and people with passion and make a movie that will stand up against any $70 million movie.