All that stuff, this public persona of me - let`s call him `the wild man` - that is not helpful. It doesn`t make me more of a box office draw. It`s the quality of my work that makes people want to go to my films.
I just didn`t want to work on that movie in the type of environment that was being created because of the needs of the budget. I do charity work, but I don`t do charity work for major studios.
I`m still excited by it. I still love the process. I want to make movies that pierce people`s hearts and touch them in some way, even if it`s just for the night while they`re in the cinema; in that moment, I want to bring actual tears to their eyes and go...
One of the most painful things of the L.A. Confidential (1997) character I played was that the author, James Ellroy, kept telling me that Bud White wasn`t a drinker. I said, `come on, this is 1953. He`s a blue-collar bloke, a cop. You`re telling me he doe...
All that stuff, this public persona of me - let`s call him `the wild man` - that is not helpful. It doesn`t make me more of a box office draw. It`s the quality of my work that makes people want to go to my films.
