“Unfortunately, in Hollywood, there are those directors that have some contempt for actors. We’ve all experienced that, in one way or another.”

If it’s an amazing role, I’ll do anything.

I am flattered that they think that many people would enjoy my work. I don’t approach any genre a different way than I may approach another one. I treat every role I do like a role worthy of applying whatever kind of tactic, process and talent I have.

When you go to the movies with your whole family, it’s a different experience. For some reason, it’s something that you’re all doing together and you take away something special in that.

Video games are one step before a whole other virtual universe.

In Hollywood, I think I get a bad rap for being a perfectionist. It’s something that’s not always welcomed in Hollywood, because you’re always pushing people and you’re pushing yourself to be the best that you can be.

I grew up in an artists community in New York, in a building that was government-subsidised for artists. No one made any money, but they made art for the sake of art.

With age, you get to a place where you don’t want to knock people out. You just want to give people a hug.

I always want another actor to shine in my scene because it makes the film stronger. I would encourage people to scene steal, because filmmaking is a collaborative effort.

My mother is the most supportive mother in the world, she’s magical.

When I’m writing, I’m locking myself in a room. I’m the worst critic in the world. I write something and then I beat myself up. I’m like “Vin, you’re retarded, that makes no sense.”

I’m an actor. I can do whatever I want. As an actor, not everything has to be the most obvious choice. And sometimes, the best thing you can do is to defy expectations.

I’m not really afraid of the dark, except if I’m walking. The thing that scares me the most is the possibility of walking into a wall and busting my lip.

When people believe in you, you can do miraculous things.

When I was a child actor, I had the fear that I was going to be cast as the tree.

I’m going to do my best to channel the character on a spiritual level.

The films that I do are deep, introspective, brooding roles that you’re in this heavy headspace all the time.

I love doing film soundtracks and working with directors on how they want the scene to be portrayed on audio as opposed to visual.

I never saw myself as a director. It’s certainly a second language but making movies for 40 years, you pick stuff up. However, this style of making movies, this documentary style, is easier for me because I gather a lot of material and with an editor, write it on screen. You try to write based on what you shot.

Great directors can understand the staging in such a way that can make a scene come alive. Others have a certain way of pacing the scene.

I thought, what’s going on? Did some whale get washed up to shore? So I stood up on the table to see what it was, and it was the director.

The story of Salome, the play itself and what it is, what it contains, and my journey as an actor, as a director, as a filmmaker, as a person struggling with whatever I’m struggling with.

Brian De Palma, standing there alone by the surf and they were all waiting for him. And I never forgot that because it represented to me what a director is, what a director does.

I want to become a movie director and win an Academy Award. That’s what I’m trying to do.

Most of the films are only 60% taken, rest is a director’s input.