I feel that I have been very fortunate and had the opportunity to play some wonderful roles and movies and worked with some great talent.
'Hamlet' was the first movie I saw. In 1948, my mother said, 'I'm going to take you to see 'Hamlet' with Laurence Olivier.' She was worried about taking me to it because she wasn't sure I was old enough to understand it or to maybe be adversely affected by it, but I got recordings of it and memorized all the soliloquies.
I got a few speeding tickets when I was young, but I'm a little more like the turtle than the hare.
I loved doing Judge Doom in 'Who Framed Roger Rabbit.' I'm constantly running into people who saw that movie when they were kids, and it absolutely horrified them.
I don't remember that I ever really went all out to come up with a costume or a persona that could compete with everyone around me. I didn't know what to do. I found Halloween scary for just that fact - it meant that I had pressure to get up and be scary, makeup and all that. That was pretty horrifying for me.
Judge Doom is such an evil cartoon! It was just such fun to do. I liked the whole mystique of it: the long cape, the glasses, and all that stuff. You grow up with horror films as a kid, and it all seemed to be embodied in that one guy.
The film I had the most fun in was 'Back to the Future Part III.' It had horseback riding, and all that work, all that training, was quite an experience.
The outburst of sexual freedom in the '60s was bound to happen because the '50s were so oppressing. You had to live that way; women had to be like this - it was all locked into a false reality.
In the movie 'Star Trek 3: The Return of Spock,' I'm a really bad Klingon, and I really enjoyed playing that - somebody who's totally unscrupulous. It's like he was not genetically equipped to feel compassion or sensitivity. Just outright evil without apology.
I really enjoy playing villains, whether they're realistic like Switchblade Sam or whether they're a bit more over-the-top like Kruge in 'Star Trek III' or Judge Doom in 'Who Framed Roger Rabbit.' It's sort of a license just to be as bad as the script allows you to be - you can just go for it and have fun.
Some people have quick retention. I'm not one of those.
We live in an era now where every episode is reviewed 80 different times on the Internet by periodicals you've never even heard of.
I turned down a film that was offered to me in the very early '80s, a Scorsese film. That probably wasn't a good career move.
I find it difficult to work if I don't know the lines, you know, and not just knowing - they're second nature to me. Then, whatever happens in the performance when you're actually doing it, you're not going to go off. You're going to retain all of that. So I like to have my lines.
I didn't know where my career was going to go. Somehow, people sensed that I have certain talents and cast me in these bizarre, off-beat roles, which I have no regret about. I've enjoyed playing every one of them.
I don't know exactly how I end up with some of these roles. It mystifies me sometimes, but I am a fan of sci-fi. I love being taken into a strange world, and when it's told with imagination and credibility, I love being taken on that trip. I always have.
We were all such odd characters, even though we were a really functional family, in a way, as eccentric and crazy as we were. And it was such a wonderful feeling amongst us of being a family almost. We were 'The Addams Family!'
