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Why did you decide to take a long time off between movies?
I intended not to work again unless something made me enthusiastic. I wanted to stop making lousy films, which I?ve been making for about 30 years ? which is a long time for making lousy films (laughing). It got to the point where my grandchildren were making fun of me, which is terrible. That kills you when they start saying, ?Grandpa, that was a lousy film.? You say, ?Oh my God, I?ve got to stop it while I still have some dignity and respect.?
I didn?t want to be a slave to any passion anymore.

I gave up card playing altogether, even bridge and gambling ? more or less. It took me a few years to get out of it. I can?t say I gave up totally my passion for women but almost.

Doesn?t a creative person have to be a slave to passion?
Yes, I want to be a slave to my passion for acting if I get a good part. These other passions got in the way of my work, really. I had too many big passions in life and it gets in the way of work. You can?t concentrate properly on the one thing.

[Over time] gradually you change. You don?t know exactly when. Women know when they?ve got the menopause but men don?t quite know. They know it afterwards. And gradually you become an old man. I don?t mean that in a bad way. You become an aged man and you change your views about everything. For instance now, if I could erase the past totally from my mind, I would do it. But it?s impossible obviously, but I tried to. I tried not to think about anything that was in my past and about nothing that was in my future. I want to live every moment totally and intensely.

Even when I?m giving an interview or talking to people, that?s all that I?m thinking about. I?m totally concentrating and totally passionate about talking to you. It?s got to be this way. I?m not being pessimistic about this but every moment can be your last one. You don?t want to go away having had a stupid day the day before or not having enjoyed the day before or the moment before, if you can.

I think that when you think of the past, it?s negative. It?s negative either because it was good and now it?s not as good as it used to be, or it?s negative because you may have regrets. How can you regret something that you did when you were 30 when you become 70? You were a different person. You thought differently, your aims in life were different. That particular day where you made the mistake or a decision, which could be regretful if one accepted the idea of regret, you made it on particular day and perhaps you had to make it. Perhaps you had circumstances which forced you to.

How difficult was it to get back in front of the cameras again?
The last thing I did was a small part with Antonio Banderas in a film called ?The 13th Warrior,? which I just a 10-minute [part] at the beginning of the film. That was I think probably in 1998 or 97. When I was up for my first shot in this film, I was a bit worried that I?d forgotten how. I always worry that I?ve forgotten how. It?s a worry that you have. Then you get into it and it becomes practically a pleasure.

Do you feel comfortable watching yourself perform?
I don?t think any actor feels comfortable watching themselves in movies. You must be very narcissistic. The problem with your own opinion of yourself is that contrary to the normal spectators, when you watch a film you are in, you only watch yourself. You don?t watch the other person on the screen. At least I do that.

When I see [a movie of mine] for the first time, I look at myself and only see defects. I see only defects because I?m not following the scene as it were. I?m not following the other person. It?s like the best thing to clarify this is the theater. When you go to the theatre, the audience does its own editing and you look at wherever you want to look. What the editing in films does is it chooses for you what you should look at. Sometimes your personal taste does not correspond to the director?s taste. You would have liked to have looked at the other person a little bit longer or to watch the person who is listening, rather than the person who is talking. When you watch yourself, you are so concerned to see how you?ve done, that you keep watching yourself. You see all the defects magnified. When I see myself I say, ?Come on. Why are you standing there? Do something, talk, breathe, do something.?

PAGE 3: "Hidalgo," "Lawrence of Arabia," and "Doctor Zhivago"