I think all phases of one`s career are serious if you take it seriously no matter if you are doing high profile dramatic pieces or not.

The truth is, anybody that becomes famous is an ass for a year and a half. You`ve got to give them a year and a half, two years. They are getting so much smoke blown, and their whole world gets so turned upside down, their responses become distorted. I give everybody a year or two to pull it together because, when it first happens, I know how it is.

All of us kids ended up `doing Mom.` There are four of us who`ve tried show business. Five if you insist on counting my sister the nun, who does liturgical dance.

I remember being in Japan 10 years ago for a golf tournament. I turned over a Kirin beer coaster, and there was Harrison Ford`s picture. He`s a guy who would never be caught dead doing a commercial here. He had a bottle in his hand and the most uncomfortable look on his face, like, "I can`t believe I`m shilling." When Sofia Coppola, the director of Lost in Translation, sent me the script, she included a photo and said, `This is what I have in mind.`, It was Brad Pitt in an ad for espresso in a can, and he had the same grimace: `I can`t believe I`m selling this can of coffee.`, That influenced me when I had to do my own shtick. - 2003 quote on his role in Lost In Translation.

Why would you get up there and bore people? I never have figured that out. These people are supposedly in the entertainment industry, and they finally get up there to that podium and they become the most boring people in the world. [on award acceptance speeches]

It was cool that an Oscar nomination never happened for a long time, and then it was cool that it did happen. But I don`t want to always be feeling this thing in my chest like, `Am I good enough? Am I gonna be rejected?`

I know what it`s like to be that stranger`s voice calling in," he admits. "It happens in acting and it happens in business. Those who are living together all the time and can guarantee seeing each other every night or weekend probably don`t know what I am talking about. There is also that little-discussed subject - loneliness. That is a great taboo, isn`t it? No one really wants to admit they are lonely, and it is never really addressed very much between friends and family. But I have felt lonely many times in my life.

I went to Second City, where you learned to make the other actor look good so you looked good and National Lampoon, where you had to create everything out of nothing, and SNL, where you couldn`t make any mistakes, and you learned what collaboration was.

We used to joke about it: `Give me an affliction and I`ll give you an Oscar!` They`re not giving an award for acting. It`s, `Thanks for making me feel something. Here`s a prize.` Somehow people don`t put comedy in their emotional bank the same way. It relieves a tension, it unties a knot, but it`s not something where people want to give you a prize. They just want to say, `Thanks for making me laugh,` which I genuinely treasure. That makes me feel good.

I don`t want to be that guy mumbling into his drink at a bar.

In Japan, you have no idea what they are saying, and they can`t help you either. Nothing makes any sense. They`re very polite, but you feel like a joke is being played on you the entire time you`re there.

I`ve had some success in movies, so I really don`t think about success. You like to have it, but I`m not desperate for it.

I think that the online world has actually brought books back. People are reading because they`re reading the damn screen. That`s more reading than people used to do.

Many people say, `Do you think this is offensive to the Japanese?` Well, I know the Japanese are laughing more at the Americanisms than we are laughing at the Japanese-isms... they love watching the stupidity of the foreigner in Tokyo. They`re not offended at all. They know that the bowing is funny and that their language is impenetrable to the rest of the world. [on Lost in Translation (2003)]

You are always away from home, as a film actor. Look at me now. You can be stuck in a hotel, several thousand miles away in a whole different time zone, and it is never glamorous. You can`t sleep, you put on the television in the middle of the night when you can`t understand a word, and you make phone calls back home which don`t really give you the comfort they should.

I don`t know how this guy knew how much money I was making. I didn`t know how much money I was making.

Here`s the thing, you just have to drive a lot faster, and if you don`t get there, we`re both fired.

You know the theory of cell irritability?. If you take an amoeba cell and poke it a thousand times, it will change and then re-form into its original shape. And then, the thousandth time you poke this amoeba, the cell will completely collapse and become nothing. That`s kind of what it`s like being famous. People say hi, how are you doing, and after the thousandth time, you just get angry; you really pop.

People only talk about what a joyous experience it is, but there is terror: Your life, as you know it, is over. It`s over the day that child is born. It`s over, and something completely new starts.

Yeah, I think that`s sort of the American way. And it`s also the Polish way, it turns out.

There`s definitely a lot of trash that comes with the prize of being famous. It`s a nice gift, but there`s a lot of wrapping and paper and junk to cut through. Back then, when a movie came out and people saw you on the street, their reaction was so supercharged that it was scary. It would frighten other people. It used to really rattle me. I mean, everybody would love to have their clothes torn off by a mob of girls, but being screamed at is different.

{Before jumping from a plane at 13,500 feet] Is there some frequent flyer program?

Movie acting suits me because I only need to be good for ninety seconds at a time.

Whenever I think of the high salaries we are paid as film actors, I think it is for the travel, the time away, and any trouble you get into through being well known. It`s not for the acting, that`s for sure.

I think midlife crisis is just a point where people`s careers have reached some plateau and they have to reflect on their personal relationships.

One of the things I like about acting is that, in a funny way, I come back to myself.

I`m over the Oscar thing. I feel that if you really want an Oscar, you`re in trouble. It`s like wanting to be married - you`ll take anybody. If you want the Oscar really badly, it becomes a naked desire and ambition. It becomes very unattractive. I`ve seen it. The nice thing is that I`m over here in Europe making a movie and so I don`t need to worry about it.

I know how to be sour. I know that taste.

There aren`t many downsides to being rich, other than paying taxes and having relatives asking for money. But being famous, that`s a 24 hour job right there.

If you walk up to some random person on the street, grab them by the shoulder, and say `Did you just see what I saw?!`....you`ll find that no one wants to talk to you.

I`m a nut, but not just a nut.