Biografia

Good friends with co-star Rutger Hauer. They made four movies together.

Acted in five films for director Walter Hill.

He was cremated and his ashes were scattered at sea.

Appeared in five films directed by Philippe Mora, including playing Hermann Goering in Snide and Prejudice.

Acted in four films for director Albert Pyun.

[in August 1999, when asked to what he attributes his success] Hard work. You gotta study, man. It's like any profession. I did eight years in theater. I studied two years in school in New York with Stella Adler, the best teacher in the world. I studied under Nina Foch, I did theater, I learned my craft. You got to learn how to build a character, there's a way to do it. Everything I ever did was different. I did 125 films, and over 100 television shows, and you've never seen the same character twice. I think now, in my 50s, with [Robert Duvall], [Albert Finney] and [Gene Hackman], those guys are getting up there in their 60s, it's my time. And I'm making sure that I push myself into their slot. So, my best work's coming.

[about Danko (1988)] I told Walter Hill, "I'll do a walk-on for you, or a starring role, I don't care". He made me a film actor. He said, "Fine, now you're a film actor" in I guerrieri della palude silenziosa (1981), and it was one of the best roles I ever had. I told Walter, "I'll do anything you want, just tell me". In "Red Heat" I had one good scene. I played this guy like a white Negro, "Snitch". So I processed the hair, wore those shoes, I made him like a real street guy. Walter Hill, he loves it.

[on his part in Ancora 48 ore (1990) being heavily cut down] Atto di forza (1990) came out a week before "Another 48 Hrs" that summer, it made 25 million. The studio panicked. My stuff was in there until one week before the film opened. They cut 25 minutes out of that movie, a week before it opened. It went from around 140 to down to around 95 minutes. They said cut all the behavior, action, comedy, done. I lost every major scene I had. That's the last time I ever cared about a movie because I went to the press screening and it was like getting kicked in the stomach, seeing what's not there. I'm the third lead and I looked like a dress extra. All the stuff that they had in the set-up, stuff in the trailer, all those scenes were gone.

My dad built a movie theater in Beaumont, California, and by the time I was two years old I was at the movies every night. I lived in books and movies. That's where I wanted to be, in that fantasy world. I started acting in school at a very early age, putting on talent shows, acting in high school plays, that kind of thing. I guess some people are just destined to do this.

[about I guerrieri della palude silenziosa (1981)] It was the hardest movie I ever made as far as being physical. It was cold and freezing in that swamp. [Keith Carradine] and the other ones, they wore wet suits under the clothes, I never wore one. I was miserable, but it worked for the movie. I played a local Cajun trapper. It's the only accent I ever had to learn. I'm a parrot. I can pick up an accent and just do it. That one I had to study, and a real Cajun taught me how to do it. So, I did this Cajun patois, bastardized French. It was very different, it was like a southern black French.