Biography

During an interview with Charlie Rose regarding the 10-year anniversary of The Shawshank Redemption (1994), he said he regarded that film, Bull Durham (1988), Dead Man Walking (1995), and Mystic River (2003) as the highlights of his career so far.

At 6'5", he is the tallest actor ever to have won an Oscar. The tallest actor ever nominated was James Cromwell at 6'7".

After the September 11 attacks, he tried to fly out of New York City to be with Susan Sarandon and their children in Hollywood. Upon finding out that all flights were grounded, he and a friend drove from New York City to Los Angeles in a 56-hour trip that began on the morning of September 12, 2001.

Lived with Susan Sarandon from 1988 to 2009. They have two sons.

Revealed on The Colbert Report (2005) that of all the movies he's made, Bull Durham (1988) is his favorite.

[on his screenwriting] I always write from an actor's perspective, which is writing dialogue that fits comfortably into one's mouth, as opposed to dialogue that is strained and defective.

A movie script is a malleable entity when you're shooting and should be able to become different things and should be able to be rewritten at the last minute.

I'm fairly competent as a director and actor, but I am Mr. Neurotic as a writer. I just don't have enough confidence in my abilities to take criticism well. I take it personally. Start with 'It's a masterpiece,' and then tell me what you think could be changed.

We have right now a media that is willfully ignoring the high crimes and misdemeanors of the president of the United States. [Bill Clinton] lied about a blowjob and got impeached by the media and Congress. [George W. Bush] got us into the Iraq war based on lies that he knew were lies . . . His war has recruited more Al-Qaeda members than Osama bin Laden could ever have dreamed for . . . yet no one in the media is calling for impeachment. Unfortunately, the book and the play is more relevant now than it ever has been. It talks about continuous warfare as a means to control the Western economy, and as a way to control rebel elements within society through the use of fear, constant fear. In my country we seem to be sanctioning renditioning of innocent people without trial . . . put them in jail without telling anyone . . . and torture them out of suspicion of what we think they might do. This is exactly what [George Orwell] was talking about when he spoke of thought crimes.

I'm six foot four and a half and I have a temper.