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  • It would be nice to do a movie where I didn't have to choke the girl to get her.
  • Something Wild was my first movie. I was in an acting class and on a soap opera for three-and-a-half years in New York - I moved to L.A. at 25 and nothing was really going on for like a five-year period. I was still in acting class, I was in class all through Goodfellas actually, and I talked to some of the guys and they said, "Are you up for this movie, Something Wild?" and I said, "No." But I decided I really wanted to be up for it even though [Jonathan] Demme had already narrowed it down to three people. I'd been to college with Melanie Griffith's then-husband Steven Bauer and I called her up and said, "y'know, can you get me in and I felt weird about it, but here I am, thirty years old and I haven't done anything yet and I'd read the script and felt like I could do that as well as anyone out there so why not me?" She got me in, she insisted that Jonathan see me, and it just worked out with me.
  • I only did it to get my foot in the door and because you never know what can happen.
    • on his first film, The Lonely Lady
  • Bad guys stand out in people's minds. If you think about De Niro or Pacino, you're not going to say Stanley and Iris, you are not going to say Author! Author! Even with Brando, you are going to say The Godfather or Street Car. It is the edgier characters that are remembered. That's my rationalization.
  • What I really am is a homebody. I was a homebody even before I had a family. My days are filled with home stuff.
  • It's the oily skin. It gives you zits when you are a teenager, but then it doesn't wrinkle as you get older.
    • on why he looks younger than his age
  • People have all these preconceptions about me. Whereas if you look at the roles, Henry Hill was the nicest guy in Goodfellas! I was a nice guy too in the comedy Heartbreakers. And I was a really sweet father to Johnny Depp in Blow!
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