- Everyone wants to learn something; maybe not everyone makes the effort, because they get discouraged. I certainly was like that as a teenager in Brooklyn, always trying to hide my ignorance. But you have to find the strength to acknowledge that ignorance within yourself, otherwise you are going to remain stagnant. I learnt a valuable lesson with Ridley Scott. My agent kept insisting that I go watch the show-reel of this commercial director and I kept turning him down, thinking there was no way that I was even going to consider working with a commercial director. In the end I saw his reel and I was blown away by how great it was.
- Fear is a marker I need to rise above, otherwise I would drown in my fear of myself.
- I don't want people to think that awards amount to the value of an actor. Real success means involvement - to engage oneself totally in something. Unless you become involved, you will stay uninvolved. If money is your god, you will accumulate money, but little else. If you seek out the experience of something... you have a good chance to have a full life.
- Existence is a struggle.
- [explaining why he supports a mandatory military draft] We, the people, should participate in the privileges we have in this democracy that we live in, and we should all share in the dangers and the risks with our lives to protect the freedoms that we have. I don't see how our young men can feel they're part of the country if they don't participate in the defense of the country - in the defense of our values - when it's necessary to do so. I feel, strongly, that by excluding themselves, they sacrifice something integral. They separate themselves from the hero's journey - this journey we all must take to find ourselves.
- Violence has its own texture, and it needs to be respected, prayed to, idolized, swallowed, digested.
- I'm learning to enjoy living because I'm learning to cope with sadness and loneliness. I'm learning not to run away from those things into other places... I don't want to pretend to know why, but living is difficult, and living is beautiful; without difficulty there would be no beauty.
- My characters aren't nasty; they're troubled. I don't see these these guys as bad guys at all. There's no difficulty for me in keeping them human.
- Acting is religious... great acting can be worshiped because it descends into the subconscious, into the soul and somewhere in there must be God.
- Making The Irishman (2019) was a bit like a school reunion without the booze! I've worked a lot with Martin Scorsese. We have a lot in common in our growing up -- me in Brooklyn, him in Lower East Side. That bonded our friendship.
- Fame is a funny thing. The upside is easy access to good restaurants. The downside is the bill! "Movie star" is a nice term, because it's poetic and fairytaleish, but it has no truth about it.
- Success isn't about awards. Success is continuity, a process of discovery. I've been very lucky to be a part of movies that were widely appreciated, but there are lesser known movies I'm just as proud of.
- If I could tell my younger self anything, it would be to broaden my field of study to include more art outside of acting. Writing, for example. In my mind I'm always writing, but I don't really.
- A lot of people ask me why I'm always playing violent characters. I feel I've never played a violent character; I've played characters that were in deep conflict, despair and chaos.
- Friendship has been one of the most important things in my life. That love, regard, caring for, being amused by... that something ethereal in friendship is the ultimate.
- I'm so lucky over my career to have met the people I have met. Any word of ingratitude from me would be disgusting.
- When I was a little boy, I had a stutter. I still stutter, but much less. Back then it was a real champion stutter. In time it faded away, for the most part. Now it seems to be returning a little bit. Maybe because I'm so fatigued. I don't mean just now, but in these years.
- [on Stanley Kubrick and Eyes Wide Shut (1999)] Well, he was a genius. Mr Kubrick did some things I objected to - I didn't like it, I thought they were disrespectful, and I won't be disrespected by him or anybody. And if any actor can help it, they should help it. You don't want to get fired, but I was. It's the sense of worth in me.
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