Sean Penn
Well, it was interesting because when I was going to do it the first time in my head was Leonardo DiCaprio [for Chris] and Marlon Brando was going to play the character that Hal Holbrook eventually played. But then when it wasn't to be and there was no promise that it ever would be I think some part of me didn't want to attach specifics to it anymore - actors or anything else - because I wanted to see it made that much more badly.Collection: Character
When I go to bed at night and I think of humanity at large, I think of all those things.Collection: Night
When you get divorced, all the truths that come out, you sit there and go, 'What the f**k was I doing? What was I doing believing that this person was invested in this way?' Which is a fantastically strong humiliation in the best sense. It can make somebody very bitter and very hard and closed off, but I find it does the opposite to me.Collection: Strong
As a foreign worker in Haiti, speaking for myself, speaking for the workers, our organization is about 95 percent Haitian, but even foreign workers driving through, we have had very minimal security issues.Collection: Organization
Bukowski said, "I know I'm good, so I like that people think I'm bad, because it gives me a dimension, effortlessly."Collection: Thinking
I don't want to lie, play games, hurt somebody, or get hurt. You can only go forward in one direction.Collection: Hurt
Reputations are maintained by the outside world, and they're created by it, too, by and large. And they serve as a hell of a device for privacy, because the more people look for something that's not there, the less chance they have of violating who you are. It's like going out there with a mask on, without having to exercise your upper body to put it on.Collection: Exercise
I don't see myself as a different guy than I was ten years ago. I don't have aspirations to be. It's really about where you're putting your energies. That's changing a lot.Collection: Guy
I don't think you can get away with putting your talents in a toilet bowl and not having them flushed away. Forever. There is a level of murder of one's soul and of the culture that they're supposed to be feeding vitamins to.Collection: Thinking
Fulfilling what you start is why you start something.Collection: Fulfilling
I think that people like the Howard Sterns, the Bill O'Reillys and to a lesser degree the bin Ladens of the world are making a horrible contribution.Collection: Thinking
I lost a friend I was blessed to have. My thoughts are with the family of President Chavez and the people of Venezuela.Collection: Blessed
It's a foreground of my feeling. That place moves me. And I don't mean my country; it's part of our shared natural world that happens to be particular to a sense of wherever my storytelling inclinations come from and my own history of kind of being a road rat and travelling.Collection: Country
My greatest interest in it was certainly not to avoid those things that were going to be controversial about the family but the interest I had in the story was predominantly what he was pursuing and not as much what he was fleeing.Collection: Fleeing
I have a regret that the entire discussion [with El Chapo]... ignores its purpose, which was to try to contribute to this discussion about the policy in the War on Drugs.Collection: Regret
Jon Krakauer had documented it very accurately and very well but this kid made a real impression on people, and likewise they on him. To talk to them was very moving in many cases because they talk about him like they saw him yesterday. In most cases they knew this kid for a couple of weeks in their whole life and he just lasted with them.Collection: Couple
Whatever I was able to do with those experiences certainly contribute to whatever I'm able to do as a director. The corruption in that is that most of what I acted in the last 10 years was to steal film school time from these guys. Those were the people I thought I could learn from as a director.Collection: School
I can't imagine being quite as lucky at any other time - I certainly never have been before. That goes right down from my producing partners to people like Eddie Vedder. But the two things that make me feel that this was meant to be now and not before was that the story itself has more resonance today - I find it a more important story today than it was then - and Emile.Collection: Two
And dressed her [Madonna] up like a turkey. After I read that stuff, I thought long and hard about what one would do to dress someone up like a turkey. And I nailed it. I figured you've got to get out the Playtex glove, blow it up and put the glove over the head.Collection: Blow
I don't believe there are climate skeptics. I think there are people who indulge in a culture of what can be reduced to Fox network thinking. That has nothing to do with the politics that apply to the protection of quality of life in any sense. It's like talking to a member of a cult.Collection: Believe
The heartbreak that it might not happen wasn't something that I wanted to face with any more weight. Then, when I got the call to go ahead I never thought for a second as I was approaching it who I would get - that would come later. Again, I think the idea was that I now had the rights to make the movie and I can start writing it but if I have to wait another 10 years before I find an actor that's right for it, I'd be very happy to do that.Collection: Writing
Haiti, like any place, has its security problems; it has a great challenge in terms of establishing a kind of globally acceptable rule of law.Collection: Law
One of the things you don't have in Haiti is you don't have anybody on crack doing something completely out of - that's unpredictable. Even at the worst times in Haiti, the violence that had happened, the lack of security that happened, was largely predictable because it was politically tied.Collection: Cracks
A clearer and more conventional narrative would have helped the film without, in my opinion, lessening its beauty and its impact. Frankly, I'm still trying to figure out what I'm doing there and what I was supposed to add in that context! What's more, Terry Malick himself never managed to explain it to me clearly.Collection: Impact
One of the reasons people sell out so quickly is because even the talented think they're frauds. It's a culture that doesn't encourage people to believe in the work they do. You're told to second-guess yourself all the time. That's where I think a little hostility and arrogance can save you. And I've never been lacking for either.Collection: Believe