- I turned down so many movies because I was idealistic. I was so pure. I didn't really take advantage of the opportunities. If I had the same chances today I would take them all because you never know where it will lead.
- [on Audrey Hepburn] She was unhappy in her marriage and hurting; I was unhappy in my marriage and hurting and we came together and we gave solace to each other and we fell in love but it was impossible. She had a life in Europe and Switzerland and where you will. I'm in L.A. with another life. Life got in the way of romance. We were having a drink in Munich, where we were shooting a picture called Bloodline (1979) and she told me, "Do you know, Ben, I never thought I was a good actress". She was so self-effacing and that's why, on the screen, she was so genuine because what you saw on the screen you saw in life--that smile and the way she lit up a room. She just had it.
- [In 2009, on Road House (1989)] I had fun making that picture. Patrick Swayze was very nice, a very sweet boy. He was a boy then, actually. Well, a young man. And just tasting the fruits of newly-found stardom. And I remember he was very nervous about it, very apprehensive. He cared a lot, and he was very tense about doing a good job. And so we'd talk and walk, and walk and talk. I liked him, and we liked each other.
- [In 2009, on filming Dogville (2003)] I was told before I went there, "Hey, Lars von Trier, he's tough with actors". Not at all. I really got along with him famously, and had a great time, a great time. Nicole Kidman was there at her best; she was terrific. The whole cast was terrific. And it was an interesting experiment, because he shot it in digital, and was able to load the camera with an hour's worth of film, so you weren't reloading every 10 minutes. And he was running . . . well, we shot it all indoors in a studio, you know, and the whole set was in one, without walls around anything, so he was able to run back and forth, up and down, shooting. You gotta be on your guard with his camera. It was very, very interesting to work on it. Much like theater, because you were not interrupted. You can go on and on and on, and of course it was on a stage; it took place in one space. In that regard, it was very much like theater.
- {in 2009, on The Big Lebowski (1998)] "The Big Lebowski" was the oddest thing. They called me, and there was really no part. I mean, it's a little part, but they go and say "Look, Sam Elliot is doing this, and this guy's doing that, and that guy's doing this". I said, "Well, let me read it". And I read it, and I couldn't stop laughing. I said, "I gotta be a part of it. This is too funny". So I had a lot of fun doing it. It took me a couple of days. I flew there and I was back in New York in three days.
- [2009, on filming Buffalo '66 (1998)] I think Vincent Gallo did a wonderful job, and it was a personal story for him. It was about him, actually; him and his mother and father. And the work was enjoyable. I enjoyed Anjelica Huston, and I had never been to Buffalo before, so I was able to see a part of America that I probably never would have gotten to if I weren't an actor.
- [on filming Looking for Palladin (2008) in Antigua, Guatemala] The city of Antigua is so beautiful and charming, filled with history, and I had a wonderful time down there. I played a character I liked to play, and lived a life I liked. One of the pleasures of being an actor is that it takes you places you wouldn't ordinarily go, and you don't enter as a tourist, you really enter the life of the place and get to know it.
- [In 2009, on making Anatomy of a Murder (1959)] There, I had a wonderful time. I got to work with my first movie star, James Stewart, a star that I grew up trying to imitate as a kid. And there I was acting with him in the same scene. I was so really overjoyed to be doing that, and proud. And then he liked me, which made me even prouder. He invited me to dinner, mano-a-mano, more than once, and I really appreciated that. He took an interest in me, and I watched him work. I watched how hard he worked, how he never schmoozed. He was never around between takes; he was in a room working with his assistant on the scene that was going to be shot next. Never wasting a moment's time. A real lesson in discipline . . . But I must say, though, he had a great deal of dialogue in the picture, playing a lawyer, and I think that was probably part of the reason he took to another room to go over his lines.
- [In 2009] Run for Your Life (1965), that came at a period where things were very slow in the movie world for me. So I had to pay the rent, and the offer was good, but it was before the big, big money in television, 1965. And that was hard work, I gotta tell you. You know we made 30 one-hour shows a year? I was in every scene, morning, noon and night. It was really tiresome, I gotta tell you. Hard, hard. Ran for three years, and we made 80, 85 shows.
- [In 2009] I would say Husbands (1970) and Saint Jack (1979) and The Killing of a Chinese Bookie (1976) are my three favorite films, of my work.
- (on making movies in Italy) You go where they love you.
- [on battling depression while filming They All Laughed (1981)] I was in a depression during the whole shooting, and I was terrific in that film and I don't remember doing it.
- [1988] When I became hot, so to speak, in the theater, I got a lot of offers. I won't tell you the pictures I turned down because they would say, 'You are a fool.' And I was a fool.
- [on John Cassavetes as a director] He set the climate for an actor to feel free to give whatever, and if it didn't work, it didn't work.
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