Every great story seems to begin with a snake.

I am not a demon. I am a lizard, a shark, a heat-seeking panther. I want to be Bob Denver on acid playing the accordion.

I think what makes people fascinating is conflict, it's drama, it's the human condition. Nobody wants to watch perfection.

My father once said, 'If you're in the desert and you're dying of thirst, are you going to drink a glass of blood or are you going to drink a glass of water?' I think what he was trying to say, interesting coming from my blood father, is sometimes there are people in your family that can be toxic.

Picasso said, 'Art is a lie that tells the truth.' What if you just want to tell the truth and not lie about it?

Mike Myers as Austin Powers makes me laugh - that was genius - and Daffy Duck makes me laugh, but I like odd behavior. I don't like hip dialogue and one-liners and all that sort of cool, sophomoric comedy. It's just not for me.

I use technology for communication, but I don't have a Blackberry or an iPhone. I use an outdated cell phone, but I'm fine with it.

I believe that there's a way to question authority with manners, with dignity. There's no reason to be rude about it.

Actors, their greatest tool, their greatest resource is imagination. You can take things, power objects, you can recruit your dreams, you can access your memories and get there. So the idea is not to act but to just be.

I have dogs, and it's no secret that I find reptiles interesting, but the thing about reptiles is that they really just wanna be left alone, and I understand them. It's, 'Don't pick me up, stop holding me, don't look at me, just leave me alone.' I have to admit, sometimes I feel like that.

Sometimes people think I'm wearing a wig when I'm not wearing a wig, and then sometimes they think I'm not wearing a wig when I am wearing a wig.

I was always shocked when I went to the doctor's office and they did my X-ray and didn't find that I had eight more ribs than I should have or that my blood was the color green.

I'm not really gadget oriented. I'm not into technology or computers. I'm not good at interfacing with that sort of gear.

I think the paparazzi might have chased me out of Los Angeles.

It's a family that's loaded with grudges and passion. We come from a long line of robbers and highwaymen in Italy, you know. Killers, even.

I'm an enormous admirer of Christopher Lee. He's somebody, along with Vincent Price, who I celebrate, and I wanted my movies to show that celebration and that honoring of these great film stars that were unafraid to go into horror and Grand Guignol and the macabre.

At a young age, I was interested in comic books, which was really how I learnt to read. The name Cage came from a comic book character called Power Man.

One of the things that's interesting to me is I find things like caffeine and stunts actually relax me. When they're putting a bit of gel on my arm and lighting me on fire, or when I'm about to go into a high-speed car chase or rev a motorcycle up pretty fast, I find everything else around me slows down.

Film has lost something in the translation to high tech. It's become so super-real. It's with digital this and stereo that, and everything's like a CD.

I've always maintained that I see myself as a student. There's always something to learn and be challenged by and hopefully grow from.

I love all animals. I have a fascination with fish, birds, whales - sentient life - insects, reptiles.

Snakes are sometimes perceived as evil, but they are also perceived as medicine. If you look at an ambulance, there's the two snakes on the side of the ambulance. The caduceus, or the staff of Hermes, there's the two snakes going up it, which means that the venom can also be healing.

I'm at the point now where I know I'm doing something right when a movie gets mixed reviews, because then I'm not in the box. I don't want to make it too easy for people and I don't want to make it too easy for myself. I want to try something unusual.

Hollywood didn't know if I was an actor or a nut or if I was this crazy character I was playing. I had developed an image of being a little bit unusual, different and wild.

I hit the ground running, without a lot of training, so I had to do whatever I could do to survive as a professional, and if that meant being that character 24/7 and acting out, I was going to do that. I lived those characters, I brought them home with me.

Mel Blanc is a hero because of what he could do with his voice for all the Looney Tunes, the Warner Brothers cartoons, to be the voice of Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck, Elmer Fudd, Porky Pig.

Passion is very important to me. If you stop enjoying things, you've got to look at it, because it can lead to all kinds of depressing scenarios.

I have a love / hate relationship with the city of New Orleans, which is the strongest kind of relationship.

The end of the world is on people's minds. We have the power to destroy or save ourselves, but the question is what do you do with that responsibility.

Children, to me, are of the utmost importance. They're really the future, aren't they?

Guy Pearce is very precise and clear about understanding the rhythm and the music of a scene.

I don't drink blood, and last time I looked in the mirror, I had a reflection.

Nobody wants to watch perfection.

Celebrity is a word I take great umbrage with. I'm actively anti-celebrity.

To be a good actor you have to be something like a criminal, to be willing to break the rules to strive for something new.

I think it's no secret that I've tried to take chances in my career and also in my life, and I believe to not live in fear.

I always see America as really belonging to the Native Americans. Even though I'm American, I still feel like a visitor in my own country.

I've always had an interest in Louisiana, especially New Orleans.

I think I jump around more when I'm alone.

All of my characters have a glint of madness.

There's a fine line between the Method actor and the schizophrenic.

I bought a Yamaha-1 and I was doing 180 miles per hour home on the 405 and that's really, really crazy but I did it.

I've always had a soft spot for comic books. I learned to read from them. The words in them were so interesting.

I would definitely return to Austria. They were all good experiences for me, but definitely Austria because there were some ancient Celtic, sacred sites that were in the forest that were quite beautiful.

I'm the first to admit that I like going to, or my memories at least of going to Clint Eastwood movies or Charles Bronson or James Bond.

I don't want you to think that I'm up late reading a stack of Spider-Man comics and eating a tray of lemon cookies while sucking my thumb. I'm not doing that. But I am loyal to the influences of my childhood.

I don't want a perfect character, I want a character who has, as strange as it sounds, some humanity, some flaws, some needs.

I know what it's like to meet someone you admire and have them be a complete jerk.

It may come as a surprise to people, but I'm actually quite boring and normal. What do I do? I read books. I drive my kid to school. I have lunch with my wife. I pick my kid up from school. I go home.

I'm not afraid to play ugly - look at 'Adaptation.' I looked like a turd that a cat had coughed up.