"My favorite — my number one favorite, actually — is A Woman Under the Influence. [Gena Rowlands] is just… I respect and admire her so much as an actress. I just think that performance is so brave and extraordinary. It was one of those things that, as a woman, as an actress, I kind of appreciate, you know. And also, that film is kind of a really, truly independent film. I think Cassavetes financed it, I think Peter Falk put money into it; kind of no one really believed in it. I was in a film a couple of years ago that a studio would never touch, a movie called Trucker, which was a great opportunity for me; but those sort of movies need to be independently financed."

"I think this is Lars von Trier’s strongest film visually, and I love the set-up; he’s so good with set-ups. A couple has lost their child, and the man is a psychoanalyst. He has decided to treat his wife himself, and his method is to put her in constant contact with the source of her neurosis. You can almost hear von Trier laugh when he’s telling the story. Quite often I feel that the set-ups that von Trier deals with are stronger than the films he’s making, but with Antichrist I think he goes the whole way. He’s just such a provocateur. With this film he’s getting to the core of what makes being a human being painful."

"I tapped into this song because until I was 18, 19 I really hadn’t been out of Wales very much, and then I was going to London with the band and doing these pub gigs. I had a couple of experiences in London where I thought, “This isn’t the way they do it back home!” Welcome to the Jungle is about this guy from Indiana [Axl Rose] stepping off the Greyhound bus and landing in west Hollywood somewhere – welcome to the jungle! In a romantic way, Richey’s Vauxhall Astra became my Greyhound bus when we all drove up, and the song spoke to me in that way. Guns N’ Roses were a massive influence on us in the early days."

"While it is sad to consider how young Vigo was when he passed away and to think of all the great films he never had a chance to make, it is amazing to think how we continue to remember this artist’s small body of work with such great admiration. This is a real testament to the power of his one full-length feature film, L’Atalante—a film that documents the early days of a newlywed couple who operate a canal barge. When I saw this for the first time, I was reminded of what it was like to see Citizen Kane for the first time: that sudden, startling feeling that you are watching something so far ahead of its time that it feels oddly out of place."

"I think Philip Kaufman is one of our most underappreciated filmmakers. His films are funny and sophisticated and are often very insightful explorations into sexual interplay among adults. Having read the Kundera novel a couple of times, and having seen the film many more, I am astounded by the adaptation. Though some disagree, I think Kaufman did justice to the source (not that it matters in the slightest). And is there a sexier performance than Lena Olin’s? Wow. The film is one of my favorites, but the true reason it made the list is that this Criterion release has one of my favorite commentaries in the collection, featuring Kaufman, Olin, and the great Walter Murch. Unfortunately, the Criterion edition is out of print."

"Paul Newman, Milo O’Shea, and James Mason. I met Paul Newman a couple of times — he saw me in two of the three Broadway shows that I’ve done in New York. He came backstage and said how much he loved the shows, and I’ve just been a fan of his work forever. This [pick] was a toss up between this and Cool Hand Luke, another monster Paul Newman movie. There was something wonderful about his lost soul that he found in The Verdict. The [characters are] on opposite ends of the scale. Luke can’t be broken, apparently. He’s got that grin and that spirit. In The Verdict he’s already broken, he’s hanging on by a thread and hoping he can pull this out. Wonderful actor, underrated."