Quotes

My favorite review described me as the cinematic equivalent of junk mail. I don't know what that means, but it sounds like a dig.

In the beginning, it wasn't even a question of deciding I'm going to do independent film and not commercial films -- I wasn't being offered any commercial films, and there wasn't an independent scene. I did a lot of "so-called" independent films that were really low-budget films trying to be commercial. But you certainly make choices when you have a script written by Jim Jarmusch or the Coen brothers or Alexandre Rockwell; I think any actor would feel lucky to be able to work on projects like that.

It's weird; I was not a really tough guy in high school, but I end up playing all of these psychopaths and criminals. I don't really care who they are, as long as they are complicated and going through something that I can understand and put across.

As much as you tell yourself, 'We made the film and here it is and that is enough,' you would like to come away with something.

I don't tend to think of these characters as losers [I play]. I like the struggles that people have, people who are feeling like they don't fit into society, because I still sort of feel that way.

When I get cast, I always flip to the end of the script to see if my character gets beaten up or killed. I really thought that after getting killed on The Sopranos (1999) I should not accept scripts where I die. I mean, there's nowhere to go after getting killed by Tony Soprano. But then I got offered this great part in The Island (2005). I didn't even make it a third of the way through the movie. I have been surviving a lot more lately, though.

The only thing I can compare the feeling of going onstage to is the fear you feel before going into a burning building. Once you go in there, the fear goes away and you're operating on adrenaline. And when it's over, if you've done well, it's something you've shared with these people you automatically feel close to.

I admire any director who makes his living solely from directing. I'm fortunate enough to earn a decent wage by occasionally playing psychopaths in other people's movies, allowing me the luxury of not having to depend on the movies I direct to put food on the table. I especially admire independent directors like Tom DiCillo and Alexandre Rockwell, who never stop trying to create their own way.

(On working on The Sopranos (1999)) I feel really privileged to have been a part of it and to have worked that closely with it, as a director and as an actor. And as an audience member, I'm still in awe of the show. For me, it never lost that sense of, 'Holy shit... this is fucking great'.

(2011, on Trees Lounge (1996)) It was sort of my life. At 19, I was truly directionless, living with my parents. I was driving an ice-cream truck and working at a gas station. There's nothing wrong with those jobs - it's hard work. But my boss at the gas station was grooming me to be a mechanic, and that's not what I wanted. The drinking age was 18 then, so I spent every night hanging out with my friends in bars, drinking.

(2011) I remember my son once asked me, "Did you ever, like, kiss in high school?" And I told him this long drawn-out story of how shy I was, how I finally got a girlfriend but she broke up with me because I was too shy to try to kiss her, and then I had another girlfriend but still couldn't figure out kissing. The technique was always a big obstacle in my head, like, How do you kiss? Where does your chin go? Forget about anything beyond kissing-first base was a total mystery to me. So I'm telling my son this long story, and he listens patiently until he finally realizes where I'm going with it, and he says, "Dad, no-did you like Kiss in high school? Kiss, the band!" And I was, "Oh yeah, Kiss...they were good."

(2011, on his grossest on-screen death) On Tales from the Crypt (1989), I played a guy involved with an Agent Orange-y chemical. My body literally rots. They've got me in this prosthetic full-body rotting-guy suit, and then I get shot. They had me squibbed up with 12 to 15 little explosives. Those things sting! So now I'm rotting and shot to pieces.

My favorite review described me as the cinematic equivalent of junk mail.