 Rough Riders took 13 weeks to shoot, plus a week of training. The same guy trained us trained the cast in Platoon. Except, instead of radios, we used bugles to signal. |
| This is all new to me, these re-releases. I don't know how these things do. I don't know if it will be people who saw it originally or young people. |
| Take characters that Nicholson or De Niro play: they're not always tough. |
| I didn't know how to go about preparing for the part of someone who can't remember who he is. The frustration angle is written in, but there's also this incredible passive state. |
| Sometimes I think I'm real predictable to myself and other times... you always wonder, Is this really what I wanted to do? Did I make a mistake? Should I be doing something else? |
| You can't think that you're playing a villain, or you'll end up with a cartoon. You have to think about him as a person and a hero. |
| I wrote a script. I actually enjoyed writing it more than acting. It's about the Irish rebellion of 1920, which is a fascinating period and place for me. |
| Most of what gets made now, you laugh your way through, go home and forget you've seen it. |
| These days, you can do a TV series for five years and all of a sudden be on top of the business. Features don't even run in theaters very long anymore before going right to television. |
| I had already done a lot of research for Rough Riders, keeping notebooks and old photographs. Some of the books were antiques for that time period, with the covers falling off. |
| I remember seeing Bill Hurt in New York once. I talked to him on the phone around 1988 and that's about it. I was shooting in New York and somebody said Glenn Close came by the set. |
| I don't think a director should have any kids. I don't even think it's good for your physical health. Even guys in their 30s look exhausted because directors never get enough sleep. What I do is stressful enough. |
| I got to talking to an old actor, and he had a bunch of stories about the Rough Riders. |
| I came in on the tail end of the old school of Hollywood. |
