What did you think of 'White Man's Burden'?

Oh, I like it, too.

It's not hit material like 'Get Shorty.' Why did you do it?

Well, Quentin [Tarantino]. Quentin's opinion I take quite seriously, and he recommended the script. When I read it, without exaggeration, I couldn't put it down. I stood in my bathroom and read it until it was finished. I knew it wasn't commercial, but I thought, I know how to play this guy to the hilt. I should do this.

So now you've got a comedy, 'Get Shorty,' a drama, 'White Man's Burden,' and then 'Broken Arrow,' which is, what, an action movie?

[Nods] John Woo is – he's an artist in action-drama, which is a genre that normally bores me, frankly.

Really?

Yeah, I don't like it. I mean it's not that I don't like it, it's just that I don't go to see it. But he shakes it up, almost makes it into a cartoon form, not unlike what Quentin does.

You're playing a bad guy, which you haven't done since 'Carrie,' right?

The character in Carrie was kind of a dumb bad guy. This is a very smart, sinewy, almost elegant bad guy. At first you think he's probably a jerk, and then you see that underneath it is true psychotic behavior.