Quotes from Tom Berenger

Debra Winger doesn't let anything interfere with her performance, which is the way it should be.

I don't care about being a star. I can do a supporting role; I don't have to be a lead.

I was kind of confused. I thought, Well, if I get drafted, I'll go. Everybody was very concerned with it. I had friends who went. Some that came back and some that didn't.

I came in on the tail end of the old school of Hollywood.

I remember seeing Bill Hurt in New York once. I talked to him on the phone around 1988 and that's about it. I was shooting in New York and somebody said Glenn Close came by the set.

Rough Riders took 13 weeks to shoot, plus a week of training. The same guy trained us trained the cast in Platoon. Except, instead of radios, we used bugles to signal.

In this industry, the new owners prefer to kill anything they weren't responsible for.

I didn't know how to go about preparing for the part of someone who can't remember who he is. The frustration angle is written in, but there's also this incredible passive state.

Take characters that Nicholson or De Niro play: they're not always tough.

I guess if I weren't an actor, I'd be a history professor.

There's a hysterical, tired sense of humor that comes after working 14 hours a day, six days a week. I like those things because they take the pressure off the constant stress.

I like playing flawed characters, people who aren't perfect.

My mother, sister and I watched through the windows as my father gambled.

Around mid-life everyone goes maniac a little bit.

Most of what gets made now, you laugh your way through, go home and forget you've seen it.

I had already done a lot of research for Rough Riders, keeping notebooks and old photographs. Some of the books were antiques for that time period, with the covers falling off.

I feel more comfortable doing films with groups of guys. It's a lot easier for me. There's a difference with women: you can't take them to dinner every night and go crazy.

Sometimes I think I'm real predictable to myself and other times... you always wonder, Is this really what I wanted to do? Did I make a mistake? Should I be doing something else?

I have family obligations and all that stuff. I get my kids six weeks in the summer, which is a real intense period of time. I'm with them every minute of the day

While I was doing these plays in the beginning, I wasn't getting paid. I thought of it more as a hobby. Then I realized how seriously a lot of these people took what they were doing.

We had training camp for a week, and we used the actual military drills of that period. We didn't have to work out much after hours, because going up and down hills all day was a good workout in itself.

I'm probably satisfied with my career 80 percent of the time

I wrote a script. I actually enjoyed writing it more than acting. It's about the Irish rebellion of 1920, which is a fascinating period and place for me.

I've done about six comedies. Oddly enough, the script came to me from one of the guys in Platoon.