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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.

-John Cusack

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I Think Being Self-referential

John Cusack

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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.

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Thinking Of You

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New York's Like A Boxing Match. In Hollywood, It's Like A Fellini Movie Or Something.

I Don't Walk Around Talking About My Life And Spouting My Philosophy To People I Don't Know. I Mean, If I Get To Know Them, I'll Talk For Hours. I Guess I Like A Lower-key Scene.

I'm Not Making Any Plans. I'm Just Going To Let The Universe Surprise Me.

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.

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.

Sometimes You Meet People And You Feel Like You've Known Them For A Long Time.

The Situation In The Film Is Like Me Going Out To Venice Beach And Talking To A Homeless Guy On The Boardwalk, And 13 Years Later He's The President.

But, You Know, I'm Sorry, I Think Democracy Requires Participation. I Mean, I Don't Want To Proselytize But I Do Feel Some Sort Of Duty To Participate In The Process In Some Way Other Than Just Blindly Getting Behind A Political Party.

Of Course, I Think It Is Legitimate For The Commander-in-chief To Be Concerned For The Safety Of His Soldiers.

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.

Thinking Of You

I Think When You Get To The Point Where You Don't Need To Be In Love, Then You Could Be In Love. You Have To Just Be Ok With Yourself-and That's A Long Process.

A Lot Of Powerful People In Washington May Think It's A Crazy-leftist-fringe Position To Think The Intellectual Authors Of A Torture Regime Should Be Investigated And Prosecuted.

I Wanted To Just Be A Filmmaker, And I Thought I Wanted To Do All The Aspects, And It Seemed Like As A Producer Was The Best Way To Do It, Because I Could Have... You Never Have Control On A Movie, But You Have As Much Control As You Can. You Can Push It Through, And You Can Hire The Right People.

Hitler Was So Modern, In That He Was Obsessed With Being Famous. He Was Caught Up With This Rush To Be Have Achieved Greatness Before Turning 30.

I Love These Movies Where It's Just About The Film. You Don't Have My Face On The Poster. It's All About The Movie. I Like That.

I Was A Teen Star. That's Disgusting Enough.

I Was Never Interested In Being An Overly Public Person.

These People Say Free Markets Are The Way To Go, But Wink, Wink, The Markets Aren't Really Free. They're Just A Protectionist Racket, And We Have To Pay For It All On Every Level. It's Really Quite Extraordinary, And Immoral, And Illegal. These Things Need To Be Named, And Shamed, And Outed, And Mocked, And Prosecuted.

The Elderly Have So Much To Offer. They're Our Link With History.

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.

People Try To Keep Their Past, Like Kind Of Holding On To Their Past. Every Springsteen Song Talks About That.

I Think Poets Tell Better History Than Historians. Historians Lie All The Time But The Poets Can Get To Truth Of It.

A Lot Of People Know That Something Very Drastic Has Happened To The Very Idea Of America.

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 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.

I Never Wanted To Come Off As Self-important.

I Feel Like I'm A Filmmaker; I Don't Feel I Need To Yell 'action' And 'cut.'

In The United States, We Can Talk About Isis, But We Can't Talk About Palestine.

I Read Noam Chomsky. I Like Some Of Gore Vidal's Stuff.

The Ages Two To 15 I Spent At Different Stages Of Shortness. I Didn't Become A Tall Person Until I Was 16.

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 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.

Being On A Movie Set Is Like One Long Financial Crisis.

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.

Movies In General

These Guys Who Talk About Free Markets, They're Not Ideologues; They're Crooks.

With Acting, You Wanna See If You Can Get Into Trouble Without Knowing How You're Gonna Get Out Of It. It's Like The Exact Opposite Of War, Where You Need An Exit Strategy. When You're Acting, You Should Get All The Way Into Trouble With No Exit Strategy, And Have The Cameras Rolling.

Texas Women Have An Amazing Sense Of Purpose When They Lose It. They're The Best Girls In The World - They're Loyal And Fun, But When They Get Mad, They'll Try To Kill You.

All My Romantic Stories Are A Scrambled Version Of That First One.

I Just Love The Process Of Working With Other Actors.

Working With Others

I Always Liked It When People Go Back In Time To Discover Things About Themselves, Like With 'a Christmas Carol' And You're Getting A Tour Of Your Life By The Ghosts Of Christmas Past, Present And Future.

If You're Going To Get Into Social Criticism With Absurdity And Satire, You Can't Be Politically Correct When You Do That.

I'm A Paranoid Schizophrenic. I Am My Own Entourage!

Well, Any Time You Do Anything Good, It's Man Versus Himself, Right? That's The Art, The Challenge.

Every Role You Do Is Kind Of A Side Of Yourself. That's Why They Give You The Part.

When You See A Culture Where The Intellectual Architects Of The Invasion Are Not Shamed For Their Behavior But Rewarded Within The Mainstream Media Culture, Black Comedy, Satire, Absurdism Is The Only Response.

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.

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.

Once You Have Opened Up Prisoner Interrogation, Wiretapping, Border Patrol, Jailing And The Services Of The Military, When This Has Been Turned Into A For-profit Business In This Endless War, Then We're In Deep Trouble.

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.

Kitsch Is More Dangerous Than It Looks When Taken To The Extreme.

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.

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.

Radical Islam And Us Exceptionalism Are In Bed With Each Other. They're Like Lovers, Methinks.

I Like The George Romero Films, Which Were Really Great, Social Satire Movies; Really Twisted.

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.

It's Supposed To Feel Good To Throw A Brick At The Right People. There Is A Long Tradition Of Naming And Ridiculing And Shaming And Calling The Villains What They Are. Usually It Was The Artistocracy Of The Day And Satire Was The Only Way To Speak Truth To Power.

I Guess Maybe I'm Idealistic.

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.

When Applied To Politics And Taken To Its Extreme, Kitsch Is The Mask Of Death. Fascism Was All Aesthetics. There Was No Core Principle To It. There Was No Truth To It.

The Film Is Not A Success Until It Makes Money. It's Only Good When There's A Dollar Figure Attached To The Box Office.

No, Actors Go Out With Actresses As A Form Of Self-flagellation.

Maybe The Absence Of Signs Is A Sign.

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.

Satire Is Meant To Have Teeth; Satire Is Meant To Be Dangerous. But It Also Happens To Be Fun Because Subversion And Telling The Right Kind Of People To Go To Hell Is Supposed To Feel Good.

If You're Looking At Things With The Right Set Of Eyes, People Are Endlessly Fascinating. And Then, Of Course, If You Look At It The Wrong Way, Then The Whole World Is Horrible And Tedious And Boring. That's The Battle, Really--to Keep Looking At The World In The Right Way.

Well, Acting Itself Is A Form Of Rebellion, Always. Getting Up There In Front Of People, Telling Stories - You're Kind Of Going Against The Grain To Begin With, Wanting To Do That, Don't You Think? Why Else Would You Do It? Except Maybe As Kind Of A Way To Affirm Your Very Existence.

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.

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Get Your Sense Of Outrage Back, And Your Sense Of Defiance And Spirit Back, And Try To Put These Pieces Together And Confront The Excesses Of Empire At Every Turn.

I Try Not To Dwell On The Past. I'm Not A Big Go-back-and-try-to-relive-your-past Kinda Person.

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.

I Force People To Have Coffee With Me, Just Because I Don't Trust That A Friendship Can Be Maintained Without Any Other Senses Besides A Computer Or Cellphone Screen.

Good Actors Can Sort Of See Into People And Immediately You Have A Chemistry With Them Or Not. It's Like An Affair With No Mess.

I Have A Good Friend Who's A Texas Girl; Texas Girls Are A Whole Different Breed.

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.

It Seems To Me That One Thing People Do Over And Over Again Is Try To Figure Out How To Get Married, Stay Married, Fall In Love, How To Rekindle All This Stuff. It Seems To Me To Be A Pretty Eternal Theme So I Don't Know If You Can Get Typecast From Making Movies About Men Relating To Women. It Seems To Be What Is Going On On The Planet A Lot.

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Putting Yourself Out There

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Usually I Play People Who Just Keep Babbling On And On And On.

All The Choices We Make In Our Life Are Pointless. There’s No Escaping The Inevitable.

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 Never Really Saw Myself As An Activist But At Some Point The Activist Is The Only Moral Position To Take.

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We've Got To Force The Democrats To Get A Spine. If They Don't Want To Have A Spine, We Should Throw Them Out. If They Don't Want To Stand Up For The Rule Of Law, Then I'm Not A Democrat.

Did You Know That The Word Person Comes From The Latin Word Persona, Which Means Mask? So Maybe Being Human Means We Invite Spectators To Ponder What Lies Behind. Each Of Us Will Be Composed Of A Variety Of Masks, And If We Can See Behind The Mask, We Would Get A Burst Of Clarity. And If That Flame Was Bright Enough, That's When We Fall In Love.

Falling In Love

I Don't Want To Sell Anything, Buy Anything, Or Process Anything As A Career. I Don't Want To Sell Anything Bought Or Processed, Or Buy Anything Sold Or Processed, Or Process Anything Sold, Bought, Or Processed, Or Repair Anything Sold, Bought, Or Processed. You Know, As A Career, I Don't Want To Do That.

I Was Raised Irish Catholic, But I Don't Consider Myself Irish Catholic: I Consider Myself Me, An American.

Poets Are Political, They Have To Be Reflections Of Their Times [because] They're Living In Their Times... Poetry Is Political In That It's Standing In Opposition To Fascism. Good Poetry Asks A Bunch Of Questions And Asks The Audience To Interact With Themselves Or See Themselves In It; Maybe You Like It Or You Don't Like It. But The Fascist Sort Of Stuff Plays On Your Fears And Tells You To Jump On The Party Line And Gives Some Simple Excuses - Blame This Person.

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.

It Never Hurts To Be Involved In Any Political Or Activist Organization. I Can Never See How Participation Would Be A Bad Thing. The Key Is Being True To What You Participate With And Who.

Not Only Is America A Country Where Torture Is Now Policy. It's Now Outsourced. It's Given To Companies At A Cost-plus Basis. It's A Triple Whammy Of Surreal, Absolute Madness.

Any Time You Stop Looking At Evil As A Black And White Thing, It's Helpful. So The Fact That There Won't Be Any Obligatory Islamic Terrorist Stereotypes In Movies Any More, That'd Be Helpful.

Black And White

I Don't Agonize Over Decisions As Much These Days. The Criteria Of What's Important To Me Is Clear. The Insecurity That You Feel, And The Paranoia That You Feel, Have Been Around For A Long Time - You Know It's A Liar Because It's Been Lying To You All Along - Every Time You Start Something New.

I Have A Bit Of A Rebellious Nature.

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 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.

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.

There Are Some Good People. But A Good Chunk Of Them Will Lie For No Reason At All - It'll Be Ten O'clock And They'll Tell You It's Nine. You're Looking At The Clock And You Can't Even Fathom Why They're Lying. They Just Lie Because That's What They Do.

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.

Justice Always Has Context.

The Sugar Frosted Nutsack Is Dizzyingly Brilliant. Mark Leyner Is A Hyperkinetic Shaman, Who Flies The Banner Of Rum And Candy And Writes Like A One-eyed Feral Bandit. His New Book Is Supremely Original, Delirious And Synapse-shattering.

I Don't Agonize Over Decisions As Much These Days. The Criteria Of What's Important To Me Is Clear.

It's A Very Frightening Time When Something As Basic As Due Process Is Seen As Somehow Radical.

A Lot Of People Are Not Meant To Be Together.

Death Is A Billion-dollar Business. They Can't Even Pass A Law Where It Takes Seven Days To Get A Gun. Why Don't You Have To Go Through The Same Kind Of Screening You Do To Get A Driver's License? It's Totally Insane.

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.

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.

The British Keep Employing Me, And That Makes Me Like Them. It Also Makes Me Think They're Very Intelligent.

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.

Lots Of Friends

I Wanted To Just Be A Filmmaker, And I Thought I Wanted To Do All The Aspects, And It Seemed Like As A Producer Was The Best Way To Do It, Because I Could Have... You Never Have Control On A Movie, But You Have As Much Control As You Can.

Do I Listen To Pop Music Because I'm Miserable Or Am I Miserable Because Listen To Pop Music?

If You Help Manufacture An Enemy That's Really Evil, You Can Point To The Fact That It's Really Evil, And Say, "hey, It's Really Evil."

Usually I Do Everything Reverse. I Practice Something In Movies And Then I Try It In Real Life.

The People Who Say They're For Democracy Want Nothing To Do With Democracy.

I Was Raised Catholic Until I Was Old Enough To Say No.

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.

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.

Hopefully As You Get Older You Get More Selfless. That Would Be Probably A Good Goal. I Don't Know If We Do, Though.

The Reason Bin Laden Staggered The Planes Going Into The Towers Was So Every Camera Would Be Focused On The Second Tower When The Plane Hit. It Was Not Only The Murder, But The Perpetual Image Of The Horror That Permeated Into People's Consciousness.

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.

I've Seen The People Who Talk About Their Love Lives In Print Invariably Have Doomed Relationships With The Person They're Talking About.

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