I always pine for what I’ve looked at as sort of the Golden Age of Movies in the Seventies — you know, here comes Serpico and Dog Day, The French Connection and Mean Streets, just on and on and on! That kind of early Seventies gritty, urban film. Even a movie like Death Wish, which is way more commercial than the movies I just mentioned, you look at something like that and think, that was what Hollywood was putting out then? Everybody saw those movies and thought, 'I'm not going anywhere near New York City, no way!' I saw them and thought, 'Oh man, I have to get to New York City!' You know what I mean?

I always pine for what I’ve looked at as sort of the Golden Age of Movies in the Seventies — you know, here comes Serpico and Dog Day, The French Connection and Mean Streets, just on and on and on! That kind of early Seventies gritty, urban film. Even a movie like Death Wish, which is way more commercial than the movies I just mentioned, you look at something like that and think, that was what Hollywood was putting out then? Everybody saw those movies and thought, 'I'm not going anywhere near New York City, no way!' I saw them and thought, 'Oh man, I have to get to New York City!' You know what I mean?

I always pine for what I’ve looked at as sort of the Golden Age of Movies in the Seventies — you know, here comes Serpico and Dog Day, The French Connection and Mean Streets, just on and on and on! That kind of early Seventies gritty, urban film. Even a movie like Death Wish, which is way more commercial than the movies I just mentioned, you look at something like that and think, that was what Hollywood was putting out then? Everybody saw those movies and thought, 'I'm not going anywhere near New York City, no way!' I saw them and thought, 'Oh man, I have to get to New York City!' You know what I mean?

I always pine for what I’ve looked at as sort of the Golden Age of Movies in the Seventies — you know, here comes Serpico and Dog Day, The French Connection and Mean Streets, just on and on and on! That kind of early Seventies gritty, urban film. Even a movie like Death Wish, which is way more commercial than the movies I just mentioned, you look at something like that and think, that was what Hollywood was putting out then? Everybody saw those movies and thought, 'I'm not going anywhere near New York City, no way!' I saw them and thought, 'Oh man, I have to get to New York City!' You know what I mean?

East of Eden, the same thing. I really started to get into those types of actors and those kinds of performances after I saw those two films.

I met this kid and we sort of struck up this friendship when I was in high school. His dad somehow got a hold of an early video player — it was probably not VHS, some earlier format or another. And he had some videos of all of these old movies and turned me onto the movies of Brando, Montgomery Clift, James Dean, all those guys. Rebel Without a Cause was a big one — there was something about that movie that just felt edgier to me.

A really influential movie on me; it was a big part of why I wanted to become an actor. We had one of those dollar theaters in the neighborhood, the kind that ran films on a second or third run. I saw it after it had been out for a while, and I remember thinking 'Wow, how did they get this homeless guy to show up to make the movie? And isn't that cool that this cowboy was also in it.

It's my favorite movie by far. And one of the great things about Spinal Tap is that, you see it and think it's over-the-top ridiculous.