The simple fact of existence, of being aware that you are aware; this to me is the most astounding fact. And I think that it has something to do with dying. When you are a kid you are beset by fears and you think, `I`ll solve the fear by living for ever and becoming a movie star.` But I am not going to live for ever. And the more I know it, the more amazed I am by being here at all. I am so thrilled by the privilege of life, and yet at the same time I know that I have to let it go.

All I know is that my best work has come out of being committed and happy.

But I am not going to live for ever. And the more I know it, the more amazed I am by being here at all.

I`m still not comfortable with all this. I`m not comfortable with walking the red carpet in a tuxedo and seeing all the women with their boobs pushed up and all the men dressed as penguins - particularly when the subject of your film is the nature of violence and humanity. But that`s the nature of Cannes. That`s the process that we are both dealing with today.

Sometimes people call me a success for all the reasons that make me think I`m a failure.

I demand minimal for paid rehearsal and not always six weeks either.

I am so thrilled by the privilege of life, and yet at the same time I know that I have to let it go.

All I know is that my best work has come out of being committed and happy.

I`ve been delighted by Cannes and Toronto but I keep saying I don`t know how good we`re going to be received in America because that`s where it`s most challenging.

I know what I love about acting - and it`s the creative process.

I`m working on a De Niro film right now called The Good Shepherd and I`m also working on a film directed by Chad Lowe called Beautiful Ohio.

If you`re lucky, and not a lot of actors are these days, you get the chance to create a character.

People who have expertise or the luck to have rehearsal time with cameras have it over people who don`t.

I was held hostage and almost executed by a man who was robbing us in the middle of the night.

It was the moment I learned acting is not acting out. After that light went on, I spent the rest of my life trying to figure out how to make other people realize it.

I have a film I want to direct. Gena Rowlands was going to do it with me a long time ago. It`s about an older woman who`s running a ranch in the west the old fashioned way.

The thing is, I don`t believe in most of what`s done. The amount of financial and imaginative energy that`s put into mediocrity is just amazing which I find to be fundamentally offensive as a human being.

I just looked at him because I want to be looking in someone`s eyes when I die.

Being famous is not something that would make me feel successful - unless one was striving for mediocrity.

Not to be offensive, not to be capricious, not to be arbitrary, not to be neurotic, not to be an actor outer, you`re just trying to get in and you`re given so little time to get in gently, but it`s always hard.

I very much prefer the balance in a scene to standing out and so you have to make a decision.

I was a science fiction junkie for a long time.

A lot of people are taking those risks on the basis of something so unconsidered that it`s completely capricious. That`s one of the reasons why actors are not respected anymore as actors.

You have to create a track record of breaking your own mold, or at least other people`s idea of that mold.

I think acting can bring you closer to yourself and help you understand other people.

I listen to XM radio because I can get so many overseas news stations.

And I don`t want to use my troubles as an example of what to do and what not to do. But there`s that old credo, in vino veritas. In wine lies truth. And a lot of people believe that. But one day you wake up and say, `This is stupid and this is wrong.` And it was wrong, so I did something about it.

What`s really frustrating with movies is the lack of improvement.

David Cronenberg knows what we actors do as artists.

The thing is David is also aware of everything and it`s not like you`re going somewhere the director is not.

Being a father, being a friend, those are the things that make me feel successful.

It just seems like that because I do a lot of independent films that don`t get to the mainstream.

I want to prove a point. That point is, actors are artists, not narcissists necessarily.

Great risks come in long term, tremendously assiduous, very courageous study.

The perfection in theater is that it`s over the second it`s done.

The simple fact of existence, of being aware that you are aware; this to me is the most astounding fact.

Heroes to me are guys that sit in libraries. They absorb knowledge and then the risks they take are calculated on the basis of the courage it took to become replete with knowledge.

I need six weeks of rehearsal and women need nine months and it took me 15 years to figure that out.