As a philanthropist, I give away a lot of money every year. Yet I thought there was a higher leverage to come in and create movies and TV shows that were actually able to do some good in the world.
Sentiment: NEGATIVE
I've obviously made a very nice amount of money. I have a very nice lifestyle. I get to do what I love. Very few actors get to do that, and even fewer are lucky enough to work steadily for 24 years.
There is a place and a time for philanthropy, and there is only so much money you can give away.
The thing that fascinates me is that the way I came to film and television is extinct. Then there were gatekeepers, it was prohibitively expensive to make a film, to be a director you had to be an entrepreneur to raise money.
As I see it, most major philanthropists have been bullied into giving. They feel social pressure to give. It has become a cost of doing business.
In philanthropy, many of us give a little bit and each year we give more and more to see what actually works and not just throw money out there and see if it's going to work. If the government did the same thing, fabulous.
In fact, I had a series of offers which would have brought me a lot of money to make films and package TV programs. There were people who said to me, we'll put a million dollars in your bank account tomorrow, which is a hard thing to turn down.
The most amazing philanthropists are people who are actually making a significant sacrifice.
Sometimes good television doesn't depend on money, it depends on imagination and good people directing, casting and doing the job with talented people.
There were very, very large sums of money that I made when I was very young - 15 million published works and a great many successful movies don't make nothin'.
I would love to have had much more money so that I could be a philanthropist.
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