Which must mean that you get to torture Christian Slater. Was he fun to work with?

Yeah, I really like Christian, I grew to love him over the course of the film. He's such an upstanding, decent fellow. He really tries his hardest to be a good man. [Wistfully] He breaks my heart a little bit, you know….We did a scene in the cockpit that, to me, exemplifies Christian. He thinks I'm his buddy, and suddenly I turn on him, and in the middle of the fight, there's this look on his face that went beyond acting – a vulnerability in his face that haunts me till this day. I think that was the moment I loved him – because of his absolute shock of being betrayed by someone he thought was his friend. He was only acting, but you could see that he's felt that in life.

Your look is slightly different in these films. Generally, how do you feel about seeing yourself onscreen now?

In some ways, I kind of like how I look now, because it gives more texture to the characters. I like how I've aged. And I like a little more weight on me. I have a lot of young qualities, so I think the weight and the age kind of cuts it nicely – onscreen, that is – so I haven't minded that.

The opportunity to do all these movies is because of 'Pulp Fiction' and the Oscar nomination.

I loved being validated by that. Because it felt like such a long time, you know?

Because the last time was for 'Saturday Night Fever'?

Right. And that was part my loss, too, because - I even told Tom Hanks this – it was 17 years between nominations. What if it's that way again? That's a long time to wait. And he said, “Well, maybe it'll be something like Get Shorty, and look, even if it's not, who could make a comeback better than you?” And I thought, That's a good way of looking at it.