John Cusack

No, actors go out with actresses as a form of self-flagellation.

I read Noam Chomsky. I like some of Gore Vidal's stuff.

Every role you do is kind of a side of yourself. That's why they give you the part.

I never wanted to come off as self-important.

It's like those high-school yearbook photos that everyone would rather not see: Oh my God, look at that mullet hair. I have those photos too, but for me, they're, like, entire movies. And they show them on cable.

I was only in one of the John Hughes films, and I never saw the other ones. I didn't understand them. I kept hearing a really hip 40-year-old person talking in teenagers' mouths.

You can only really judge yourself in comparison to other people. How bad you are, but you're not as bad as someone else. So it's degrees of losing.

I think being self-referential is really narcissistic. Who's to say anybody's even thinking of you that much? But some of these movies that I've done, people still recite lines to me, even 20 years later.

Getting trapped back in the '80s, it's almost like a comic nightmare, which for me is a very real nightmare. Every time I flip through the cable, I have flashbacks.

Of course, I think it is legitimate for the Commander-in-Chief to be concerned for the safety of his soldiers.

My dad had a commercial film company, so he had a videotape player before anyone. So he got Mel Brooks movies or Citizen Kane or some classic old movies. And every summer the revival house in Evanston would show the great films from the '50s and '60s and '70s.

My job is to just express something that I want to express. And if I'm ahead or behind the curve, that's for others to decide.

There's also some element of coming of age during the Reagan administration, which everybody has painted as some glorious time in America, but I remember as being a very, very dark time. There was apocalypse in the air; the punk rock movement made sense.

Well, I think any actor can probably identify with being a professional liar. You don't always look at yourself that way, but I know a lot of days I do.

If you're a movie star, there's a cycle you go through: adoration, adulation, you're used, and then you're discarded. And it happens again and again, always in that sequence.

I remember once acting really cool on a bus with this girl named Stephanie. When I got home, I realized that I had a really big zit on my forehead. If you have acne problems, you really shouldn't be acting like Don Juan.

But no, I don't really like romantic comedies, so I don't really care. I never go see 'em.

My point was that it's hard to make good films, but I'm not under any illusion that you do all the time.

I was never into the popular school or clique or anything. Then I started doing movies when I was in high school, so then I got popular. Then the girls paid attention to you who didn't before.

Well, any time you do anything good, it's man versus himself, right? That's the art, the challenge.

I'm definitely nostalgic about the music of my youth; The Clash and Fishbone and that whole music scene. I still have all that music to this day. There was some great music going on in the late 70s and 80s.

I remember the '80s being about the Cold War and Reagan and the homeless problem and AIDS. To me, it was kind of a dark, depressing time.

I try not to dwell on the past. I'm not a big go-back-and-try-to-relive-your-past kinda person.

Acting can be pretty challenging. I can't say making a romantic comedy is challenging, but to do anything well, you have to put yourself into it.

If people are constantly reading about you, and you're overexposed, they've got no reason to go see your movies. Also, it's not pleasant or nice to have your privacy invaded.

I just love the process of working with other actors. It's like jamming with a musician, except it takes a little more effort to get to that place as an actor, because you have the cameras and lights and everything. But I love jamming with these people.

I remember once acting really cool on a bus with this girl named Stephanie. When I got home, I realized that I had a really big zit on my forehead. If you have acne problems, you really shouldn't be acting like Don Juan. I should have been contrite - and apologized for exposing her to the angry pimple.

I think that taking night trains or meeting someone on the road is pretty romantic. I've done a couple of things like that. I've surprised someone in Paris. And hopefully, when you surprise someone, they're happy to see you.

I was working with a great actress - a superior artist in every way - and she really liked Celine Dion. I tried very hard, but I couldn't understand it. I just can't listen to Celine Dion! So I guess music is a deal breaker.

Probably Lloyd in 'Say Anything' is the closest to me - or to who I was at the time. It was just a great love story about people in the '80s, and we all tried to make it feel as real as possible. It was such a wonderful time. We didn't leave anything in the gym; we put it all out there.

Having people remember something that you did 25 years ago doesn't suck.

You just try to get the best jobs that you can get. Sometimes I produce my own movies, so that's your own sort of vision. That helps things. I don't know what it is. Probably just circumstance. I've definitely been aware of the fact that I want to do different things.

I think that Poe is so resonant because he represents that part of us that is in misery or sorrowful or wants to explore the darkness. He wrote a great story called 'The Imp of the Perverse' about the instinct towards self-destruction. Poe is the godfather of Goth literature and that whole movement.

Our parents more or less just kind of wanted us to pursue our passions. Whatever they would have been, they would have helped light the fire. They are very liberal, artistic people, but they didn't force us into acting. They let us find our own ways.

I grew up in Evanston and lived in Chicago for a long time, in Old Town and Wrigleyville. I did three films when I was in high school. The first was 'Class,' with Rob Lowe. I had a supporting role in that.

Roy, the guy I play in 'The Grifters,' is a guy who had a very bleak life. His mother had him at 13, and then when she was 17 or 18 and he was 4 or 5, they were trapped in a small Texas town somewhere, and she was ready to do anything to get out.

I was never a joiner. I tried - I had people I admired and liked and wanted to hang with, but I ended up starting a theatre company and that took me back to Chicago... I guess I wasn't a scenester in the end. Something must have worked out right, as I'm still here - but I'm only a binge socialite.

Hollywood is just a bunch of people going around in Learjets to other people asking them if they've got any money? Well, they might have if they didn't spend it all on jets.

I kept saying that I'd never live in L.A., and I didn't think I would. But that's where the work is, and I ended up making a lot of friends there, and my old friends moved out to Los Angeles too. And also, I think when you're famous, its hard to live in a small town.

Poe had this curious kind of alchemical courage, where he took all the terrible things and terrors that happened in his life, all this shame and fear and pain, and turned them into great works of art. He was a complex, brilliant person who was just wired too tight.

If you wanna give me an award, I'll take it. Just don't make me go to the party afterwards.

The movies have got more corporate, they're making fewer movies in general, and those they are making are all $200-$300m tent-pole releases that eat up all the oxygen.

I feel close to Lloyd in 'Say Anything'. He was like a super-interesting version of me. Only I'm not as good as him. Whatever part of me is romantic and optimistic, I reached into that to play Lloyd.

If I'm in something that I think is kinda good, it stays with me like a fever dream for a long time afterwards. I don't recall the finished product so much as the feeling of making it.

I don't tend to think in terms of a moral authority - be a good boy, do good things - more in terms of what feels right.

I am rich enough.

It's something we, guys, have all done. Made tapes for girls, trying to impress them, to meet them on a shared plane of aesthetics. Read them someone else's poetry because they do poetry better than you could do it, because you're too awkward to do it.

The ages two to 15 I spent at different stages of shortness. I didn't become a tall person until I was 16.

I don't want to produce anymore small or independent movies because it's just too hard these days.

Most movies, once the action starts there's no more characters. You say a couple of dumb lines and then there's just explosions until the end.