Westerns was why I got into the business. I grew up on a small farm in California and all I ever wanted to do was to play gangsters and cowboys in movies.
The interesting part of the process is developing the character, you know, why did he become that? Why is the guy a murderer, or why is this guy a pervert, or whatever he is. So that's the fun part for me to delve into the abyss.
The best thing about Sci-Fi, which is my favorite genre, is that there are no rules for behavior. So you can do anything you want.
The bad guys are the best parts.
Since very early in my career, I have always did my own stunt fighting.
Producing is nothing more than bringing all the elements together, connecting people.
My whole deal when I do accents or dialects is I gotta fool the locals. If I fool the locals then I've done my job.
My dad had a movie theater so I was there every night.
Larry Kasdan is a great director.
In the '70s, everybody was doing drugs, so long as you showed up and did your work, they'd use you until you died.
I've never considered myself a leading man, don't look like one, don't want to be one.
I'm big and a lot of the stars are smaller so if you're big and mean looking, you play bad guys. After Blade Runner, I was the meanest guy in Hollywood.
I'm a parrot. I can pick up an accent and just do it.
I'm a character actor, so I don't take the hit if the movie's bad, the lead does. So, I don't want to be the lead. He takes the hit, I don't.
I was a different kind of kid, oversensitive and all that.
I still do television. I don't care. I just want to work. I love to work. I want to do 500 movies.
I prayed to God for help and I put myself in a recovery house called Studio 12. It was for people in the business and you didn't have to have any money to go, which was good because I was broke.
I never play a villain that I don't have something I can either do or say so the audience sees there is something redeemable about them. In other words, I don't want to do evil for evil's sake. I don't want to do Jason slasher movies. There's no point in that.
I did 125 films, and over 100 television shows, and you've never seen the same character twice.
I couldn't say no to jobs and I couldn't say no to drugs. I'd get high from a movie, I'd be somebody else because I didn't particularly like me, so long as I had a script in my hand, I was okay. As soon as the movie was over, I didn't know what to do.
I could talk about Blade Runner forever.
Blade Runner helped make my career. Everybody was in it. Who knew?
I play out negative fantasies for people. I'm the guy people love to hate. And they always remember the bad guy.
It's too hard a life for me. I could only do it - check out in that sense - if I checked out somewhere that was luxurious and within hailing distance of civilization.
It's often difficult to slough off all that we've acquired, all the comforts and safety nets modern life provides for us, and realize that in those days, people were living very much on the edge - life was incredibly hard!
It was never physically dangerous except when I nearly fell off a horse, but it was physically arduous - especially when you were working late at night.
It was doing very well; it was doing particularly well outside of England. It was a very big seller for Carlton Television. But it was getting more and more expensive to do.
I've been a professional actor now for 38 years. A long time. And it's wonderful to earn your living doing something that you love. To think people actually give you money for it!
I'm always conscious of the fact that I am part of a profession that is 80% permanently unemployed. So, to be working in any sense is to be privileged.
I'd gone into that restaurant and sat down and the waitress had taken my order and everybody else had seen me with this what must have looked like this creature, this animal, sitting on the top of my head!
