Statement given to the Village Voice, the LA Weekly, Cahiers du Cinéma, and other publications, on the death of Robert Mitchum, July 1997.
"One day while working on the set with Robert Mitchum on our film Dead Man, he looked stoically out toward the horizon and said to me, “Years ago I saved up a million dollars from acting – a lot of money then – and I spent it all on a horse farm in Tucson. Now when I go down there, I look at the place and I realize my whole acting career adds up to a million dollars worth of horseshit.” He said a lot of other unforgettable things to me during the brief times I spent with him. I’m really sad to hear of his death. But then I think, man, we’re so lucky to have all of his performances preserved on film. There was and is no other screen presence like his: dangerous, strong but guarded, ever-unconvinced by the actions of those around him, and that odd sense of someone smoldering on the inside but so damn cool on the outside. Now I just want to go home and watch Out of the Past, or Night of the Hunter, or The Lusty Men, or Macao, or Blood on the Moon and soak in every subtle expression and move, every word spoken by that low, mesmerizing voice; just anything Robert Mitchum ever did."