Starring in a science-fiction film doesn't mean you have to act science fiction.
Failures are inevitable. Unfortunately, in film they live for ever and they're 40 ft wide and 20 ft high.
I had the idea that the film would be much better served by a Branch Rickey lookalike than a Harrison Ford lookalike. I didn't want the audience to go into the film thinking that they knew me from some previous experience in a movie.
I knew that there was an aspect to this story that was beyond the typical and that it was something very important about America, about our culture, and about bringing a story to a new generation that perhaps didn't know the details of it, (and) hadn't had the visceral experience that this film is [42].
I get an opportunity to communicate with the audience about the movie that I've made. I get the chance to bring attention to the film that I've made. I care a lot about the movies that I make. I want them to reach an audience, and I want them to be successful. I promote nearly everything that I do, unless I've got some bad taste in my mouth.
[Jimmy] Breslin's [write] really great book on Branch Rickey. And Branch Rickey himself wrote quite a lot. There's some film and kinescope from television.
There's no independent satisfaction without the success of the film itself. The feel that you have done the best you can to support the film.
That [film What's My Line] was very useful to me because it had Branch Rickey in a social situation. Every other bit of film [42] that I had was him making a speech.
I need a challenge. I need the intellectual stimulation. I'm a member of a community on each film, working in concert to try to bring an idea to life. It's a great job.
I think American films right now are suffering from an excess of scale. Lots of movies we're seeing now are more akin to video games than stories about human life and relationships. Twelve- to 20-year-olds are maybe the largest economic force in the US movie business. I'm not a very nostalgic person - but I enjoy a good story.
I get mad when people call me an action movie star. Indiana Jones is an adventure film, a comic book, a fantasy.
There comes a point when you've exhausted your opportunities playing good guys. I've been around long enough, I think I'm entitled to explore a bit. But what I saw there was an opportunity to play a character different from what the audience's expectation was. A chance to take their crude experience of me - of my iconography, if you will - and turn it on its ear at an appropriate juncture in the film to be useful to the process of telling the story.
I try to preserve a certain amount of time away from the movies, so I don't allow time to do those smaller parts that might give me an opportunity to do more seemingly 'artful' things. Although, having said that, I don't feel any lack of noble purpose if I do a film that's commercial.
The job's always the same. It involves helping to tell the story and creating an alloy between character and story that serves the film.
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