Brian Dennehy

I lied about serving in Vietnam, and I'm sorry. I did not mean to take away from the actions and the sacrifices of the ones who did really serve there... I did steal valor. That was very wrong of me. There is no real excuse for that.

In this business, you have a hierarchy of stars. Russell Crowe, Tom Hanks - you name 'em, they can play any part they want. Guys like me who are somewhere down in the middle of the pack, that's a different story. I can do things in the theater that I can't do anyplace else.

The theater business has allowed me, in a way the movie and TV business has not, to do very, very interesting work. So that's what I do.

I'm not in the movie business anymore, and hardly any 70 year olds are. I always ask the producers: 'Are there no 70-year old vampires?' Apparently there are not - or even zombies for that matter. I guess they all get eaten.

I come from an Irish Catholic family, and hell-raising is part of the DNA.

I idolize Gene Hackman. He is not a natural star, not an incandescent personality like Jack Nicholson, but he makes luminous the problems of being an ordinary man in an extraordinary situation.

I'm not one of these people who likes to do as little as possible. I really do feel the hot breath of time on the back of my neck these days. And there are certain things I want to do before my time is up.

You know, you get to a certain age, 45, 50, I don't know when it happens, I said, 'Jesus, all I got is a certain amount of time. Maybe I should think about using it a little better.'

It took a long time for me to have any impact in the business because I didn't look like an actor, I didn't sound like an actor.

As the stars make more and more money - one person gets $12 million, $14 million, $15 million, $20 million - everyone else is expected to work for peanuts. And that includes some extraordinary actors who are, today, working for peanuts because the production companies have decided they don't need to pay these people, and they don't.