As far as carrying the American banner, you just do what's right for the kids.
Do whatever you're directed to do, and leave the rest of that technical stuff up to the director.
I don't know if I have a technique. I'm just trying to remember the words.
I don't like to be talked into anything. I don't want to be cajoled.
I don't think there's a formula to it. If there was, everybody would be real good all the time, It's a hit-and-miss process.
I had a brother who was an attorney, so my first intention was to go to law school. I wound up in the police department, and I loved it.
I had a hard time crossing the street and getting into cars. So I didn't do any driving, and I hardly did any walking.
I have a home in Arizona. I go a couple months a year, but basically Chicago is my home.
I just did a movie called Stealing Harvard, and I played somebody's father. In Saving Private Ryan, I was a soldier.
I know people who go back and check themselves, but it drives me crazy. Everybody wants to look in the mirror and see Cary Grant looking back at them, but that's just not the case.
I learned a long time ago: You're in the entertainment business. You're not in the reality business. One has absolutely nothing to do with the other.
I liked guys like Richard Conte. Second bananas. You didn't know who they were, but they were wonderful. Good actors.
I love England and the historical aspect of it.
I read the script and try not to bring anything personal into it. I make notes, talk to the director and we decide what kinds of shades should be in the character.
I really like Elmore Leonard's writing.
I think all actors are supposed to be character actors.
I think first impressions are important when you pick up a script.
I think it was George Bernard Shaw who said that the British and the Americans are two people separated by a common language.
I wanted to do Buddy Faro as a small budget movie. They said no. So I wanted to do it as a series of recurring TV movies, and they said no. So I agreed to do it as a series.
I was in New York on Sept. 11 doing the publicity for Big Trouble. What happened was beyond horrible, and everybody knows that. But we have to go on.
I'd love to do a Western. A real Western like John Ford used to do. There's not too many of them made, so I don't know if I'll ever get to do that. They're awfully hard movies to make.
I'm not interested in seeing too much reality anymore. I'd rather watch a Dean Martin concert and let the world go by.
I'm very happy doing what I'm doing.
I've tried writing. Two days later I'd go visit it and say, Jesus Christ, who wrote this crap?
If I like it and there's nice people involved and there's not going to be a lot of angst for three months, I'll do it.
Nowadays they do that DVD cut, and all that stuff from the floor will be on that.
The British have slang words, as we do, but it was fun.
The cast was huge, but I never saw anybody.
Their football is not like our football, and I was asking Vinnie to explain cricket to me and he asked me to explain American football to him.
There's a whole catalogue of actors that never went to acting school.
This generation of filmmakers is very good. They're seasoned, for some reason.
This is my first experience working in a foreign movie, but the mechanics, I think, are pretty much the same all over; you still have to wait in the trailer.
Usually you're in movies with a lot of dissolves and things, but this was kind of quick, more jarring than usual. I thought it would be fun to be in a movie that's unconventional. Then I met Guy and I liked him. I think he's a good man.
Vince or Brad or Benicio would say, Maybe we should try this, and Guy was open to changes.
We keep monitoring ourselves, censoring ourselves, being too sensitive to this, too sensitive to that. We can't keep doing that.
What you do as a policeman might be the right thing to do, but it's not entertaining. I left that behind me.
When I was a kid going to the movies, we'd go because Bogart was in the movie, or Cagney, or John Wayne. We didn't know what the story was about or anything.
When they released Sidewalks of New York, there were some shots with the towers they were going to take out, and Ed told them no. I don't think they can deny the towers were a part of New York.
When too many people get their hands on things, they want to make it commercial, and they wanna do this, and they wanna do that.
When you read about a jewelry robbery or a fine art robbery that goes off successfully, there are many more that don't go off.
You can change a person's life in an instant; put him in a movie, and you start thinking differently, you want to be in another movie. It's like an addiction almost.
You can't act for the editing. You just go in and do the scene the way you think is right.
Dennis was in New York City on September 11th.
Dennis loves England.
Dennis wanted to go to law school and become an attorney like his older brother.
Dennis starred in the Chicago theater production of Tracers which won the Joseph Jefferson Award for Best Ensemble.
Dennis is a huge Dean Martin fan.
While on the force Dennis had such a bad shot he was nicknamed "The Great Wounder".
Dennis is 6'1".
Dennis quit law enforcement in 1985 to become a full-time actor once he got the lead in the TV series Crime Story.
Dennis won the 1996 American Comedy Award for "Funniest Male In A Supporting Role In A Film" for Get Shorty.
Dennis narrated the historical documentary American Gangstar.
Farina means flour in Italian.
Dennis was a Chicago police officer for 18 years. They were from 1967 to 1985.
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