I invested, and I protected myself, so I enjoy that freedom.

I kind of have a rededication in my life now to acting because I’m very fond of being in this movie.

As an actor I kind of do. I started out doing voice overs in the mid 80s when I was in grad school.

I love knowing that I’m not better than any other person on the planet.

It’s one of those scenarios where no, I never imagined that I’d be directed in a love scene – not even a love scene because it’s kind of a hard-core sex scene because it’s kind of just purely played for this carnal venting.

And there have certainly been movies I wanted to be in and milestones I wanted to surpass that did not happen.

But I’m a citizen of Texas and try to spend most of my time there.

But to this day I am convinced that the real reason we met was because Alexander is from Nebraska, and he was completely fascinated that I was about to go off and make a movie with Brando – perhaps the most famous Nebraskan of all.

He was using me. When he cast me in Sideways I was nothing but a vessel.

I love going to the feed store and drinking coffee and talking about how much rain we need.

Last summer when we were preparing for the movie, I actually kind of wanted to stay fairly uninformed about it. As we went through the process that we do in the movie, I wanted to be a little wide-eyed.

I enjoy doing press for something that I like, and I think the movie is very fun and charming and clever.

Between Clive Owen winning at the Golden Globes and the British Academy announcing its nominations, of which Sideways received only one, I’m feeling pretty humbled these days.

I would say 95% of the time, because you just can’t remember your lines if you’re drinking alcohol. I would say about 95% of the time it was grape juice or this fake wine, which was horrible.

I made a comfortable living for several years. I invested, and I protected myself, so I enjoy that freedom.

The title of the movie is open to interpretation.

But at the same time, if the right thing came along, I would do it in a second.

But all actors go through the process, it’s hit and miss, you have achievement and failure.

Their lives have been largely defined by failure and you would think the prospect of marriage, which is supposed to be bountiful and hopeful, it’s just really another kind of tangential thing in his life.

I invested, and I protected myself, so I enjoy that freedom.

I certainly was an actor and then I drifted more towards writing and directing.

Children from like 8 and even up to the college age – Spider-Man appeals to a fairly broad demographic but, like I said, a mean age probably of 12 is a good mark – they process information so quickly and it’s not because of attention deficit or short attention span.

I’m not so proud to think that anything is unworthy, and I don’t think I was that way 10 years ago.

I believe in singularity in relationships because you’ve got to have trust on both sides.

But I think once the word gets out that the movie is funny – funny is transcendent – it will traverse all demographic barriers if people embrace it as a funny movie.

To some extent I could identify with that because I kind of just made my money and got out.

Cary and I are working together on another movie, Charlotte’s Web.

When I moved to L.A. in 1989, the very first thing I did was this horrific pilot called To Protect And Surf.

I like to keep my private stuff pretty vague.

But I certainly know a lot of people that existed at that level and are always kind of pining for more, always thinking that the next big break, the next opportunity, the big role are just around the corner of the next audition.

I did a series called Ned and Stacey for two years for Fox back in the 90s. I was writer on it as well as a producer, and it was very important to me that there were no contemporary references.