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This is many, many years ago. It was shortly after "Starman" I think. I don't know how close I was to getting the part. I met with [director] Penny Marshall and that's one that I knew would be a hit. It just felt hit-ish. But it's like you go to a store and you see a jacket and you go "I love that jacket" and you try it on and it's too big or too small for you and it's the only one they have. For some reason that part just didn't fit me.
I've done movies in the past that have so many characters and I find it's very hard to follow all these stories. You end up not caring about any of the people and I thought that would be the case in this film, and you had these big speeches for each character, you know, it's like "God that's how you'll have to cut that down in order to paste it all", to edit the movie and my representatives could say "no, you really you ought to check it out.
We would do improvisation together. And that in a way, had almost a "student-film side" where we'd be sitting there with Robert Downey and Jon Favreau and we're playing around, we're jamming around and we read those pages and in next couple of days that's what we do, so it was a good experience. Kind of frightening at first because you didn't quite know how it was going to work out, but they had some very talented people there so it worked out well.
One of the tough things about being an actor, probably the hardest thing, is getting your foot in the door, and my father handled that for me at a very early age. It's funny, I get an image of the thing with eggs and chickens where, when the egg is getting ready to hatch, the little chicken will start to peck at the shell a little bit, and the mom will hear that and start to peck at the shell from the outside, and they're both kind of working together.
Kevin Bacon and I recently worked on a move together, R.I.P.D. Just before we'd begin a scene, when all of us would feel the normal anxiety that actors feel be- fore they start to perform, Kevin would look at me and the other actors with a very serious expression on his face and say: "Remember, everything depends on this!" It would make us all laugh. On the one hand, it's not true of course, but on the other, everything does depend on this, on just this moment and our attitude toward this moment.
Public charities, foodbanks and church pantries are doing more than ever before, but they can't keep up with the need. We can never end hunger only through the wonderful work of local charities. Like other Western democracies, we must end our national problem of hunger through national and political leadership. Charity is nice for some things, but not as a way to feed a nation. We don't protect our national security through charity, and we shouldn't protect our families and children that way either.
I'm one of those guys who will drink to, uh, kind of celebrate. I don't drink too much when I'm down or anything like that. But you've really got to be, I guess the word that came to mind is "creative," about the way you're celebrating. You want to keep the celebration going. I've learned that lesson over and over. Here on the road there's a lot of cause for celebration, but you just gotta get the damper out a little bit, and you want to keep that governor on. You want to keep your give-a-shitter in kick.
I had success as an actor relatively early. When I was 22, I got nominated for an Academy Award for The Last Picture Show, so that road, you know, had the least resistance. I was doing my music all that time, but it's pretty hard to turn down these great movie offers. And my father counseled me; he said, "You know, one of the wonderful things about acting is that you can incorporate all of your interests into the different parts you play." I'm glad I listened to the old man, because that's the way it turned out.
I remember in one of my early films I had a drunk scene. It was Kiss Me Goodbye, with Sally Field, and I was playing this kind of nerdy guy who gets drunk and dances. And so I thought, "Oh well, I'll just get drunk and do the dance." And it was wonderful, but then I had the rest of the day, and the next day. So I learned that you don't really have to do the things that your character is doing. But us actors, we use something called sense memory. I've certainly been drunk before, and part of my job is to recall that without getting drunk.
I love seeing somebody act real earnest and serious, like Jackie Gleason. He makes me laugh because he reflects back to me my own serious-mindedness and how ridiculous it all is. It's always easier to see somebody else in that position than yourself, and you laugh. It's like the classic slipping on the banana peel, or someone getting hit by a pie in the face. Why do those things make us laugh? Is it from relief, like: Thank God it wasn't me? Or is it something else: I'm being very serious now. I'm pontificating earnestly and solemnly about-POW! PIE IN THE FACE! The bust-up of certainty.