I think documentary filmmakers need as much protection as possible under journalist's privilege. How else is the public to know what is going on?
I was never a good student. I had to be dragged into kindergarten. It was hard to sit and listen to somebody talk. I wanted to be out, educated by experience and adventure, and I didn't know how to express that.
I can't go into a bar anywhere without someone starting to play 'the Entertainer'.
I've always liked speed. I own a car that I shouldn't be talking about because I'm an environmentalist, but the 1955 Porsche Spyder 550 RS is the finest sports car ever made.
We program the festival, after 20 years, exactly the way we did on the first day.
I wanted to get out of this country and experience different ways of seeing the world. So I went to Europe, but I went as an artist. I was increasing my skill set and exploring storytelling through painting.
I'm not a facelift person. I am what I am.
Films don't always tell a story; some films can achieve effect just by being razzle-dazzle or rock n' roll. That's part of the fare that's out there. And that's okay. For me, I place more value on a story.
There is nothing I can do about this stuff and I am pretty well ok with the fact that I think Sundance is not going to be stopped by it, because he Festival is itself now, and doesn't need me out there to talk about it like I did years ago.
When I started, I was an artist; I wanted to be an artist. I became an actor almost by accident. I acted for fifteen years and tried to produce. I looked for stories that were the story beneath the story that you thought you knew, like 'The Candidate'.
Whereas money is a means to an end for a filmmaker, to the corporate mind money is the end. Right now, I think independent film is very confused, because there's excess pressure in the marketplace for entertainment to pay off.
Sport is a wonderful metaphor for life. Of all the sports that I played - skiing, baseball, fishing - there is no greater example than golf, because you're playing against yourself and nature.
Usually I like to improvise. Sometimes, depending on the nature of the piece, I like to improvise because I think it brings certain freshness and a reality to it, as long as it doesn't go too far out of the box.
Storytelling was a way to see the world bigger than the one you were looking at, and that had great appeal for me. I think, since that was part of my upbringing, it became part of me, and I wanted to pass it along to my kids and my grandkids.
If you want to slice into America, it's pretty red, white, and blue in terms of how it goes about things, but there's a gray area there, and I've always been interested in where things are complicated.
It felt to me like America was always wanting to resolve things too quickly, without thinking through what the costs and consequences would be and how that affects an individual living in that world. Then as I grew up and went about my life, I think I just got more and more interested in that gray area where things are not so easily quantified.
Going to Santa Fe is like going to Greece. It's not that special compared to other areas. The pinon pines are no different than pinon pines elsewhere. But there has been culture there longer than in most places, and you feel it.
I'm interested in that thing that happens where there's a breaking point for some people and not for others. You go through such hardship, things that are almost impossibly difficult, and there's no sign that it's going to get any better, and that's the point when people quit. But some don't.
I don't see myself as beautiful. I was a kid who was freckle-faced, and they used to call me 'hay head.'
He's meant to be that classic Homer, Ulysses, Hercules - a character who goes out or has some gift of some kind. He goes on a journey of discovery and part of that is falling into darkness - the temptations of life.
