I've wanted to work with my father for 30 years, and I'm really grateful that I finally had the opportunity, and it ended up - the experience and, I believe, the film - better than I could ever have hoped for.
I couldn't see my father's films because they were restricted and we didn't have videos or DVDs back then.
Theres a confidence that comes from youth and not knowing better. But there comes a point, as an actor, when you do know better, and that is when the fear starts.
There are certain moments that you have to hit in a film, like when a character cries.
Some people think it's because '24' was jump-started by what happened on 9/11. That was never why we made the show. We started production six months prior to 9/11, and we'd already done ten episodes.
I didn't grow up with my dad, so it was always very funny to me, and always has been, what an important part DNA plays in one's life.
My mother's five foot two and, I'll be honest with you, she's the only person I'm scared of.
People respond to a guy who is trapped and succeeds on some level and fails on another.
When you're a young actor you like to go for characters with a bit of flair, so in many films I ended up playing the weirdos. But I can assure you I'm not a psycho or a criminal or a bully.
If you're going to break cinema, film, and movies apart, very rarely to you get the opportunity to even think that you've been a part of cinema.
Most of my career I've spent really nervous. Just about work, getting work and having it in.
Romania is an interesting place because I think it has been abused, on so many different levels.
I wasn't trying to do a play or do what Kevin Spacey did. I was trying to do my own thing with it.
Were kind of in our own cocoon making it. Every once in a while you stick your head up for a second, and you just cant believe how successful the show has become.
I think one of the things I was most interested in finding out was how differently we approached our work. And my reality was that we didn't approach it very differently at all, which was funny.
What I ended up doing was kind of crafting an idea for a story, presenting it to a writer - a dear friend of mine, Brad Mirman - and he ended up writing a beautiful script. I should've done that a lot earlier.
I think when you get the opportunity to work with someone like Lars Von Trier... I mean, Alexander Skarsgård, Charlotte Rampling, John Hurt, just to work with those actors, you take that opportunity when you get it.
I consider myself to be a relatively helpful person, and there's an interesting line when hope starts to become the way you actually mask or hide from what's really happening.
I've always thought of the western as American storytelling at its best.
If you take a look at our natural history, there's always a moment where the young lion wants to challenge the older lion and, inherently, that's going to be problematic, and I don't think we're any different.
I think the father-son dynamic is interesting. I don't have a male friend who hasn't had some kind of conflict with their dad, and I don't have a male friend who hasn't had some kind of conflict with their son.
I liked the ceremony, the ritual of preparing cocaine, as much as doing it. I did it for a year, loved it, then stopped. Now I feel the same way about cooking.
I remember being really grateful that David Lynch had actually even thought of casting me, because I was a huge fan of his.
You know, I wish I wasn't so young when I made some of my movies, because I thought that's what the rest of my life was going to be like and I'd have all the time in the world to enjoy it. It wasn't and I didn't.
When I wasn't the flavor of the week or month or day, those were hard times.
I think just in general there's a bunch of films that mattered to me that didn't reach their potential, and on some level you have to assume responsibility for that. And I think over the years that gets difficult.
I've done some stupid things. You just have to take responsibility, go, That was embarrassing, and move forward as best you can.
I've always been shocked that people that I'm actually flying with say, 'Oh, I feel safer on the plane with you.' I'm thinking, 'You must not watch the show because everybody around me gets killed.'
Isn't it funny? You hear a phone ring and it could be anybody. But, a ringing phone has to be answered doesn't it?
I've made films that I've given all I had to, that no one has seen. The bottom line is I want to work and I want someone to enjoy it.
