Wisdom worth sharing, words worth remembering.
We still live with this unbelievable threat over our heads of nuclear war. I mean are we stupid? Do we think that the nuclear threat has gone that the nuclear destruction of the planet is not imminent? It's a delusion to think it's gone away.
I don't feel the need to direct. I tried to get other people to direct Dances but they wouldn't do it. They all thought it was too long. One director wanted to cut the Civil War sequence. Another thought the white woman was very cliched.
President Kennedy was willing to go to war. He was not a coward. The man had been in war and so had Ken O'Donnell. He was ready to protect this nation but he was not ready for a military solution just because it was being rammed down his throat.
I wanted very much to do Traffic and at one point it looked like I was going to work on it. And then of course Catherine Zeta-Jones had her relationship with Michael Douglas and it suddenly didn't happen.
I'm glad movies aren't going to please everybody they can't. But what they have to be is recognisable. I don't equate myself with a master painter but I think you can recognise my films.
I like four-hour movies.
There are a lot of things that come to bear on movies now that I don't think are good for movies. They're trying to appeal to the biggest demographic and when they do that you sometimes flatten out.
I enjoy sports. I get a real joy from playing sports but I don't look for those movies. Oliver Stone wanted to know if I would do Any Given Sunday and it just didn't appeal to me.
I'm proud of all the movies I've made. They're not sequels they're not franchises. And the reason I pick my films carefully is that I don't want to spit on my life. I like to think of myself as more than that.
I think these movies are as much for people of that time as for people who weren't born. For people who weren't born they see how leaders must act under a crisis situation not trying to be re-elected or not trying to check polls that they go from their gut check.
Money isn't a major motivating force in my life. Nor is my profession. There are other things that I care more about than being an actor.
I haven't lived a perfect life. I have regrets. But that's from a lifetime of taking chances making decisions and trying not to be frozen. The only thing that I can do with my regrets is understand them.
