Q: Looking at your career odyssey, it's amazing you ever got off television. At a time when being stamped a TV star meant you had no chance of a movie career, you did 15 pilots and seven rnajor series. Were you intent on being a TV star back then? A: Every actor wants to be a big movie star. I don't give a shit what anyone says. Truth is, you're already beating the odds if you're just making a living, since 95% of our union doesn't. When T first got out here, there were these so called Brat Pack kids. I was a couple years too old for it. By the time "ER" came around, I'd been the wrong guy at the wrong time for so many years. Finally I was the right guy at the right time. I always wanted to get into movies, hut there was this chasm you just wouldn't believe. As recently as when I was on the series 'Sisters" and Warner Bros. was paying me $40,OOO a week and I was a very successful, unfamous guy who could get a pilot greenlighted by a network, I couldn't get a film agent at my then agency, William Morris, to represent me. At all. I went to see this guy who used to work there named Brian Gersh, who sat there like a bloated pain in the ass and went down a list of big stars that had Bruce Willis at the top. "Here are the clients that I represent, what do you think I can do for you?" They sent me to audition for one line in Guarding Tess. It was incredibly frustrating.

Q: Were you concerned you were running out of chances? A: There's a point where you resign yourself to the idea that you're going to be a journeyman. But I had a nice house, a couple of cars. I was living an exceptionally nice life. There was a turning point alter I'd read five times for Ridley Scott for the part that Brad Pitt ended up getting in Thelma & Louise. That was the closest Id ever gotten to a big film. I litteraly stopped and took an honest look at my career. I thought I'd be doing television series the rest of my life.

Q:It must have hurt to watch Brad Pitt catapulted to full-fledged movie stardom with that role. A: I wouldn't see that movie when it first came out. I was just...so...mad. And Brad just kept going and going and going. I flnally saw it a year later when it came out on tape. I sat there with my mouth open, saying, I would never have thought of doing things the way he did them. Suddenly I realized how right Ridley Scott was. When you don't get a part, you think, the director's just an idiot. Truth is, he couldn't have been more right. Brad couldn't have been more perfect for the role.

Q:What was the lowest point you hit before "ER"? A: When I realized I'd fallen into fall on mediocrity and I was getttng out of a marriage that wasn't working. Things just weren't going my way. I was doing a series called "Baby Talk," and [executive pruducer] Ed. Weinberger and I were fighting like mad. What Ed. lacked in couth, he made up for in pure anger. It was the first time I ever thought of doing somethìng else with my life.

Q: You walked off that series, didn't you? A: When I quit, I thought I'd be fired fur good. But the minute I stood up to this guy, who was a jerk, things changed. Actors always come from a place of fear that they're never going to work again in this town. Like there's this little club where they sit around and say, "You know this guy Clooney? Let's never hire him again." The truth is the opposite. Suddenly, I could make ballsy decisions, take falls.

Q: The succees of "ER" got you yuor first starring role, in the vampire pic From Dusk Till Dawn, followed by One Fine Day, The Peacemaker and Batman & Robin, all of which were considered disappointing. A: That's not how I thought of them. All of them were great breaks for me. From Dusk Till Dawn was a huge break. Quentin Tarantino, coming from Pulp Fiction the year he got the Oscar, wrote it and played my brother. Robert Rodriguez, coming right off El Mariachi and  Desperado, directed.

Q: Had you known Quentin before? A: I read for Reservoir Dogsm the Michael Madsen dancing-around scene. I probably would have been horrible and I thought he was so great in it. It's the best thing I ever saw Michael do.

Q: Considering how long you waited for your shot at features, From Dusk Till Dawn was an odd choice. It was unapologetically violent, and it was two films grafted into one. A: But the script was so good. In the first half of that movie the dialogue is spectacular, it's PuIp Fiction. The second half is a much different kind of film, the kind I also enjoy. People who love that film absolutely love it. But the ones who hate it, wow! When I bring it up to some entertainment reporters, you can actually see them twitch. They hate the gratuitous violence. I understand that, but it made me laugh. And my part was so well-written, I saw an opportunity.

Q: What uppununity? A: When a part is well-written, I'm good. I know what my limitations are as an actor, but my strength is putting myself into a well-written part. When I get in trouble is when I have to fix it, or when I have to carrv it on personality.

Q: what was the result of that film? A: The world changed. Steven Spielberg sent me a note, saying, The Peacemaker is the first film from our new studio and I'd love you to do it. I'd made $250,OOO on From Dusk Till Dawn, and then Steven was offering me $3 million tu star in his first movie at DreamWorks.

Q: Didn't he get you extricated from a pay-or-play deal at Universal to be The Green Hornet, something only
 Spielberg could have done? A: Absolutely, it was a heady time. Of course, you realize later that it was because I was cheaper than anyone else.  

Q~ The film right after From Dusk Till Dawn was One Fine Day with Michelle Pfeiffer, a movie that was deemed just OK. Is it a good memory? A: It was another gigantic break. I can't even explain how big a break. For the first time I was doing a rumantic lead in a movie, and I was eye to eye with one of the top five Ieading women in the country. And the reviews were nice to me. The movie was what it was -- everybody did their jobs. It  wasn't groundbreaking stuff, but it makes you smile. And it made a lot of money. Was it a great film? Absolutely nor. Was I proud to be in it and was it a lucky lreak for me? Absolutely.

Q: The Peacemaker was another film that could be perceived as a disappointment. A: Or as another big break. Now I was doing an action film. Bur it was the first film I'd done where the script was in serious trouble from the very beginning. The story was compelling, and Mimi Leder did a really good job telling it, but the dialogue had problems. Still, it was me as an action srar, something I'd never done.

Q: So when people point out your "failed" movies, they're missing the point -- that you were proving you could exist in these worlds. A: I wasn't really trying to prove anything. There was no master plan. I got jobs, and they were big breaks. On The Peacemaker we took some harder hits than we deserved.

Q: Why? A: DreamWorks was being reviewed rather than The Peacemaker. It was the first time I'd gotten bad reviews ever in my life. Actually, Batman came out first, so it was like a one-two punch.

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