Certainly, it`s very easy to fall in love with cash. If you`re going to make all your decisions based on cash, you`re going to have a pretty naffy career.

I enjoyed growing up part of my life in Virginia Beach. We had the ocean and the beach and a beautiful landscape. We were outdoors all the time and we played outside.

As we`re bombarded with the imagery that we are and now, post 9-11, it`s hard not to get hardened by the world and the amount of violence that`s allowed to be shown to kids these days.

With indies, all they have is their script and it`s very important to them. The characters are better drawn, the stories more precise and the experience greater than with studio films where sometimes they fill in the script as they`re shooting.

I think we`ve all been kind of... everyone`s been hurt, everyone`s felt loss, everyone has exultation, everyone has a need to be loved, or to have lost love, so when you play a character, you`re pulling out those little threads and turning them up a bit.

The problem to me is violence. It`s not cool to kill somebody or hurt people.

I was bartending for a long time and going on auditions and was constantly being rebuffed.

I don`t want to feel like I`m stuck doing one-stock performances.

I became an actor so I didn`t have to be myself.

I love acting with kids, cause they`re great acting partners. They`re totally present. Even when they`re acting, they`re still available and you can crack them up or something weird will happen and they`ll go with it. You can throw them little curve-balls and they`ll go with it. I always like having kid energy around. I think it`s good for a movie, even when you`re doing dramatic stuff.

Who I am is a conglomeration of probably all the things that have happened to me, so somewhere along the way that works its way into the work.

Usually, the first night before I start working on a picture, I can`t sleep. If it`s a particularly difficult scene, I have a hard time sleeping.

It`s a difficult undertaking. I`ve been married for four years and I see this movie as a cautionary tale about people who`ve gone deeply out of communication.

And my mother caught wind of this. She never had really tried to guide my career or really had any say in my life as an adult, but this was the one time she said she would never speak to me again if I quit acting.

But the frustration of not being seen, not having anyone acknowledge this great talent that I was sure was in me, was really frustrating.

My belief about acting in one foot on a banana peel and the other one in the grave.

The whole experience of getting close to mortality changed my perspective on work. I wasn`t enjoying acting before: I felt like I wasn`t in charge of my career. I wasn`t doing things that made me feel good. I was really bitter, I thought I deserved more, and I wasn`t grateful for all the great shit that had happened to me. If you`re not grateful, then it`s very easy to be an asshole. After the brain tumor happened, I realized I love acting, I`ve always loved it, I may never get a chance to do it again.

I`m sacrificing part of my anonymity which I enjoy to have more options as far as what I can get off the ground. It`s a give and take sort of thing.

I didn`t really have any interest in producing anything.

Literally, I think I`ve quit acting three or four times, only for a few days. Maybe for a few weeks.

Right now, most actors are personalities and acting is not what they were talking about when I was being taught by these old masters.

People say funny things all the time during really serious moments in life.

Also, stick around. Don`t lose your heart, just keep going, keep at it.

You know, fifty percent of the marriages in America end in divorce, and eighty percent of married couples, one or the other has had adultery.

I had to work on a Marlin boat, like gutting fish, like as the bait boy.

But, the relationships that I see work - As long as they`re telling the truth, and saying the things that you don`t ever want to have to say to another human being.

I mean, I think I admire my wife the most out of anyone. She`s really smart, in a practical way that I don`t have. We balance each other.

The true value of somebody in this town [Hollywood] is very hard to determine. It`s all smoke and mirrors.

Yeah, there`s a tendency to get pigeonholed in Hollywood.

I like to disappear in the parts I play.

I do readings at the public library. I just did a benefit scene night for my old acting teacher.

I`ve just been more interested in doing film right now and I don`t want to go away from my family for six months, which was what I would have had to have done if I did the play on Broadway.

For some reason, my whole life has been, `You can`t do this, you can`t do that.` The other day I was watching these kids crossing the road, and they have these crossing guards, kids who help other kids across the road. They would never let me be a crossing guard when I was a little kid . It would come up, I`d always raise my hand, I would never get picked . They thought I was too wild, but I knew I was responsible enough, if I was given that task.

I like to think the movies that I`ve picked have something worthwhile to say. Something relevant.

We`ll engage in pretty extreme violence in the world but, you know, the one thing that comes to humans as easily as eating or breathing or sleeping, is sex.

I don`t like this idea of Method. I come from that school, but what I was taught was that it`s your imagination. You do your homework, and you use your imagination. People use the Method as a shield; it shields them from being vulnerable. I hear all these young actors who are like, `I`m Method, I`m gonna go live in the house, you know, I totally get it, I`ve done it, I`ve been there`, but one thing I know is it kills spontaneity. They`ll still give great performances, but they`re not playing with the other actors - it`s all about them. And spontaneity and vulnerability are gold on screen and on stage - they are the fucking magic. When Brando reaches down and picks up that glove and puts it on his hand, that is magic. You can`t plan that. (He is referring to a scene in On The Waterfront: Eva Saint Marie accidentally dropped a glove on set and, rather than wait for another take, Brando picked it up and put it on, without missing a line.)

I think of marriage as a garden. You have to tend to it. Respect it, take care of it, feed it. Make sure everyone is getting the right amount of, um, sunlight.

I live a bourgeois life.

Do theater. Because you`ll develop a craft that you`ll always have. It`ll give you a chance to really learn how to act and you won`t go into the world with a few measly tricks that will only carry you so far.

I come from a traditional theater background.

Commercials that are geared towards kids. I think they should just, like, wipe them out.

We`re warriors, this culture, and we`re very puritanical about sex and very embracing about violence and I don`t know why that is.

The one great thing about a continuing collaboration is that they know you. And if you`re really lucky, they really believe in you and think that your talent has some unending bounds to it.

This country consumes more pornography than any other country in the world.

I want to do a western. Nobody does westerns anymore.

I still feel like I`m trying to make it. It`s hard to shed the struggling actor thing.