I don't get over the wonder of it, and 'The Last Samurai' was an extreme example of that. Every day when I went to the set, I couldn't believe what I was seeing.
Sentiment: POSITIVE
I wasn't hip to 'Samurai Jack' until I saw it, but then I was all, 'This show is awesome!'
Samurai films, like westerns, need not be familiar genre stories. They can expand to contain stories of ethical challenges and human tragedy.
One of the amazing things about 'Seven Samurai' is that there are a lot of characters. And considering you have so many, and they all have shaved heads, and you've got good guys and bad guys and peasants, you get to understand a lot of them without too much being said.
The best night of my life was watching the Japanese Noh theater. I've only seen it once, but even saying it now, I think, 'How can I ever have this experience again?' It was so mesmerizing, so complicated and so primordial; I could not believe it.
I watched the 'Seven Samurai' a lot because I loved it growing up. I can't describe to you how powerful that was. When you're a kid, you can't watch an almost-three-hour movie, but this was a war I just never saw before, with these samurai. I could relate to it, just being poor.
Film remains completely mystical and mysterious to me.
I look at the Samurai because they were the artists of their time. What I think struck me when I read Bushido is compassion. 'If there's no one there to help, go out and find someone to help.' That hit me, because I try to lead my life like that.
For as long as I can remember, the thing that gave me a sense of wonderment and renewal... has always been the work of other actors.
You know, I find it very strange when movies that I made that were just excoriated - I mean that I was just vilified for - are now looked at as classics.
I don't want at the end of my life to look back at just a bunch of fictional movies I was involved in that kept taking me away from the real world.
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