Inside The Actors Studio - Interview Excerpts (2002)
James Lipton: What dictates your choice of projects and roles Johnny?
Johnny: You know, the element of surprise, really.
JL: You avoided the path that 99.9% of actors yearn for, which is to go to traditional leading man roles. Was that deliberate? You could so easily have taken that path and I'm sure you were offered role after role that required a certain male beauty. Have you deliberately taken another path?
Johnny: Some people call it ignorance.
JL: No, nobody in this room.
Johnny: I was so uncomfortable being a product, and someone else's product, and I didn't, I couldn't stand it - it was so claustrophobic. So I swore to myself that I would choose my own path, and I wouldn't deviate in any way, and if I failed, I failed but I tried. I figured I could always, you know, go back to playing guitar or pumping gas or something.
JL: You've described the unifying link between your movies as being "addicted to losers."
Johnny: I'm interested, deeply interested in human behavior, you know, and what makes people do what they do, and what makes people tick, and why they have these little nervous gestures, which I'm absolutely full of tonight I'm sure. Ah, so losers, I don't know. The people who are considered not normal, or outcasts, or not welcome into society, or....
JL: Outsiders?
Johnny: Just people who are not deemed normal by society.
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