Bill Pullman

I've always been a fan of George C. Scott, who was working in movies when I was in college... films like 'Patton' and 'Hospital.' I was really impressed by him, and I had seen him onstage as well in 'Uncle Vanya.' He was a champ to me.

I always love challenges and doing something that I can't quite figure out.

I watched John Wayne movies, matinees - things like that. It was only in college that I saw European films. That became more of what I was interested in.

I never had any idea of going into movies.

I'm fascinated by movies and enjoy that, of course, but always, the measure of how you are functioning in the arts was theater.

I was doing this children's theater play, and it was non-Equity. We were out of town to do it at the Kennedy Center, and it was always kind of, 'Well, the producers may have to turn this into Equity,' and that's what happened. It was kind of a silly children's theater play, but that's how I got my card.

I did this play, 'Expedition 6,' that I worked on for three years in between other things. It was a good, interesting time for me because I trained as a theater director, and I went back, and we toured it around.

Sometimes when you really try to be earnest, everything disappears. If you really try to make a romantic movie, the first thing that goes out the window is the romance or real passion. It suddenly becomes cute-ville or cozy-ville. It's another world other than life.

I think you do independent movies because you're looking to cut away from commercial movies.

Commercial movies have to end with moral flags flown again and all that.

A lot of people just ask me about how I can do small budgets and big budgets, but many actors do both. I think the more self-destructive impulse I have is doing so many different characters.

Sometimes you fall into the niche of being the confidant guy, or the good-looking guy, or being too charactery, or not charactery enough.

I've always wrestled against being typified in one way or another.

Television tends to be a more difficult medium for me to get my head around sometimes when it comes to certain things I get offered.

I'd have to say that it kills me that there's a concern that 'Torchwood' has gone to America to become Americanised.

No one wants to say, 'That's not funny,' when you're working.

I always feel like there's some behaviour that we're all capable - we have our inhibitions protecting from indulging in certain appetites or developing certain appetites.

You're always carrying something that's interfering. It's like static noise that doesn't have to be there, and you have to school yourself to clean that out.

I've been lucky to have opportunities with David Lynch in 'Lost Highway' and Jennifer Lynch in this movie 'Surveillance,' so I've always boomeranged around a little bit, and no one has caught my foot in the trap yet, but I think if I move fast enough... 'cos I think I got trapped a couple of times.

I did 'Malice,' 'Sommersby,' and 'Sleepless in Seattle,' and they're as disparate characters as I've ever played. But somehow, there was that thing - they were all second male leads, so they all didn't get the girl in some weird way.

Fox was interested in a different title to 'Independence Day.'

I've never really been a television watcher, so I never watch comedies.

I have gotten a number of invitations to be on television shows as 'the dad,' but that was Kryptonite to me. I was like, 'This would be the death of me. I'll be a cesspool of niceness.' It doesn't feed me.

I think about Laura Bush every once in awhile. She is a great supporter of the arts. I did a show at the Eisenhower Theater, and she would make a point of coming backstage. The relationship between Laura and George Bush was always that way where you felt like he was at his best behavior when he was in her company.

Stacy Keach was really fun to work with, and Henry Winkler was very fun.

I love that vein which uses sci-fi to address society's problems. It is the same when you have useful nightmares - things morph, and you get to confront issues in your dreams.

I've always liked authors such as Philip K. Dick and Ray Bradbury.

I think Westerns are always so great for clearing out the clutter and the ambiguities, and getting right to the broad strokes of that kind of situation.

I noticed that in 'The Revenant,' as much as it is a good story of revenge and endurance, there are times that you get to escape with a story like that.

We're all part of humanity. And maybe there's something about the worst people, with the most destructive, warped minds, that is just an acceleration of something that is in quite a few of us.

I like to build houses.

It's astounding to me that in a country where there is an ever-growing divide between rich and poor, that people won't accept the need for regulation on banks and salaries and so on.

Westerns give people a chance to see wide-open spaces and life before technology took over.

It's funny: When I first heard they were thinking of me for the president in 'Independence Day,' I just assumed it was a comedy - I didn't exactly think of myself as leader-of-the-free-world material.

It's hard to explain to people how, if you're really capable of providing the right professional work environment, it allows you to get more personal.

There is a bearing which comes from having a little bit of something withheld. In acting classes, they always say don't reveal 100 percent: it's much more interesting.

There is something exciting when you see people who are very formal talking with each other, and there is a sense that they have chosen to be that way. There is something masked that is more interesting to me than just people who are intent on displaying their uniqueness or whatever.

I went to school in the 1970s, and there was a lot of physical theater in those days.

It's during wartime that innovations happen.

That massiveness of bureaucracy at the VA is chronic and has been chronic.

I think institutions that are bureaucratic often try to squeeze from the top down, and they don't have good results on the ground level.

The military is a discrete entity. Then they come back, and they're such a small percentage of the population, and they can't really - it's hard for them to talk to civilians.

With modern medicine prolonging life no matter what condition you're in, it seems like we're working towards immortality by science.

I'm often confused with other actors. But the people who know my work don't have that problem.

I have a pretty good grip on who I am.

I've seen a lot of actors in a lot of different stages of their careers, and I've seen it come and go. People get a sense of entitlement from it. And that's when it starts getting you in trouble.

'The Last Seduction,' 'Sleepless in Seattle' and 'While You Were Sleeping' did a lot to get me noticed for bigger roles.

I have always been impressed by the fruit community. There is a Tao of fruit, which is generous. You share what you know, and you give what you can.

I did a lot of Shakespeare touring when I was in college in Montana.

I really enjoyed doing Albee's 'The Goat.' It's a powerful piece and a really exciting play to do.