Thomas Jane

I spent a lot of years just learning my craft and falling down in front of the camera.

Conformity is painful. You know, it's too tight. Conformity leads to rebellion. So a desire for happiness is in direct conflict with a desire for freedom.

I'm interested in the impact my movies have on people and how it affects them, and what they like and what they don't like - and what they take away from it. What leaves an impression, you know?

Earlier on in my career I felt that I had to hide behind a lot of different masks, and showboat ways of performing. Now, that's a lie. The less I have to hide, the less I have to act.

Most of my career up until the last couple of years has basically been a training ground for me. Actors that came up in the '50s and '60s, they had the theater, and television was in its infancy.

Places where prostitution is legal, you find much better health care, fewer cases of disease and illegal abortions. There's really nothing to be gained by keeping prostitution illegal.

It's not that the film is violent, it's that people have an issue with violence right now.

I loved 'Boogie Nights.' That was a great movie, and I had a lot of fun doing that.

Terry Malick offered me three parts in 'The Thin Red Line.' I was busy shooting other movies while he asked me the first two.

That's what I think is the neat thing about TV: how alive it is and how the writers respond to the stimulus that they're getting from the actual actors. Whereas a movie is more hermetically sealed.

Harrison Ford - one of my favorite actors - has a wonderful sense of character and depth and uniqueness to him, yet he's able to just deliver the lines without putting any English on it.

To stand there and do nothing on film is probably the hardest thing to do.