Having had that experience... I think, what modern culture wants to see is the relationship with the woman. I don't think you can tell a story on film nowadays where the woman simply is there for the man when he decides to settle down.

I think character is real important. And you know, and I think the public does.

Which to this day is a source of enormous guilt, because I left with three classes to go in the business school to sign a contract with 20th Century Fox.

I haven't made a political statement in quite a long time because, frankly, they get repeated, changed.

I never try to pander to an audience, and I'm really not concerned with my image. I'm far more interested in stretching my abilities as an actor.

I praise CBS for taking a risk, which is always the price you pay for opportunity. This is not standard movie of the week storytelling. I think movies of the week have fallen into a niche and that isn't my niche.

Shooting clay targets is a very cleansing experience. It's very relaxing. It takes a lot of concentration. It's also very social, since you're usually shooting with friends. You can talk and forget about almost anything else that's on your mind.

It's not that conservatives don't care. We do. We just have different answers than liberals do. It's a difference of the mind, not of the heart.

I think of myself as an actor first, not a sex symbol. Do I think I'm sexy? No, that's someone else's judgment, and I honestly don't think you can try to be sexy and really succeed.

I don't feel the obligation to have a big explosion in the first 20 seconds so the audience doesn't turn on another channel. We are trying to make something that looks like a feature film that was bought for television and I think we are succeeding.

Stand up and pledge with me: A government of the United States is not on the auction block. And America is not for sale!

I guess after Dances With Wolves they probably tried some derivative westerns, and if they didn't work, they said the western is dead and moved on to something else.

I think television has always been one to replicate when something's successful. I don't think there's quite as much innovation.

It is scary for an actor when you get hired as a lead. No matter what the plot is, it is your job to do something interesting enough to make them want to get inside the lead character's head.

Good parts should always scare you a little bit, and good parts... you might not get advice to do them.

I hate going to the gym, so sweating outdoors sure beats sitting on a stationary bike staring at my navel.

I don't think you should do something just to prove to an audience that you can do it, that's way out of your wheelhouse.

But, you know there's a lot of westerns - not that they were bad - it's just that they can be remade because they're great stories that aren't indelible in an audience's mind when it comes to both the cast and the story.