P: If you had an hour with Clinton, what would you say to him?

R: I’d want to know who he is, because I’m not sure he’s who people think he is. The problem with talking with politicians is that they know how to read people. They say what needs to be said and don’t say what they might really feel. They need your vote. They need your support or your money. So I don’t know if I’d get an honest answer. I’d say, "Bill, what are you going to do?" And he’d say, "I’m trying this and that. I’m doing everything I can." And that’s a bunch of horseshit. That would be a waste of an hour.

P: If they put you in charge of the war on drugs, what would you do?

R: Legalize marijuana.

P: And then?

R: And then we would save an enormous amount of taxpayer money, specifically on the penal system, which is overloaded with marijuana abusers. It’s unbelievable. When I did The Shawshank Redemption, every guard I talked with who had worked in a prison had this opinion: Legalize marijuana. There’s no reason these kids should be here. They haven’t committed a crime against anyone. And when they leave, they’ll find they have learned the skills of different trades: armed robbery, burglary, assault. Marijuana is just like any other thing that might not be good for you. If you do too much of it, it can screw up your life. But it can’t screw up your life like cocaine or heroin or downs or ups or LSD.

P: Is this an admission that you still smoke pot or was that just a phase you went through as a kid?

R: I take the Fifth. [Laughs] Considering the fact that it’s still illegal, I don’t see how it would be wise to let’s put it this way: Considering the fact that I’ve used it in the past, and know what it is, and seen the results of it, I don’t view it as a dangerous drug. I’ve also used other drugs that I do consider to be dangerous, drugs that are potentially detrimental to kids and society at large.

But I don’t want to advocate anything like [smoking pot] in print, because it’s a different thing for different people. Some people can handle it, some can’t. Some people get really dumb and stupid and embarrassing on pot and some people are funny and creative. But for me to just blanketly say that I use it and, therefore, other people should, would be, I think, irresponsible.

P: So what would you say if your kids came to you one day and said: "Dad, did you ever take drugs in the Sixties and Seventies?"

R: I would say, "No, it was the Eighties." [Laughs] Yeah, I would be honest with them. And I’d t ell them exactly what each drug does to you.

P: You realize that, having admitted these things now, you’ve just disqualified yourself from being a Supreme Court justice or the attorney general.

R: Well, I didn’t say I inhaled.

P: Let’s move on to political buzzwords. What does "family values" mean to you?

R: I resent that the attempt was made to appropriate that term for one political way of thinking. The problem at the time was that people were using the term as an idea of what a family is. But there are so many different kinds of families other than the male-female, son-daughter family. There are all kinds of setups: grandmothers and grandfathers taking care of their kids’ kids, aunts and uncles, stepfathers and stepmothers. Brothers and sisters raising children. Homosexual couples and people with no blood relation raising children. What’s important is that the children receive love and nurturing and caring, not that they have their biological mother and father, though it would be wonderful if that were the case.

P: How about "cultural elite"?

R: I’m honored to be a member of it, according to Newsweek. My acting company, Actors’ Gang, was the only theater company mentioned in the cultural-elite article, so we were very proud. [Laughs]

P: What does that phrase say to people?

R: It’s just another way of trying to take people’s attention away from the real issues. In the Fifties, I believe, the word used was "intellectual." It was condescending to use the word intellectual; an intellectual could not possibly have any feeling or knowledge of the life of the American worker or housewife. The intellectual is the enemy. You know, a bunch of horseshit.

P: What about "character issues"? This term came up during the 1992 election in regard to Clinton’s draft record and his alleged philandering. What does it mean to you?

R: Let he who has not sinned cast the first stone.

P: "Political correctness"?

R: For me, using the term politically correct is a way of dismissing people who are concerned. It’s a way of dismissing compassion, a way of dismissing people who feel for humanity. It’s being used in a very cynical way.

P: If you were going to run for office, how would you do it?

R: I wouldn’t.

P: But say that you were. Say that something compelled you to run and you couldn’t stop yourself.

R: I would stop myself. There is absolutely no way that I would enter that world.

P: Why?

R: Because of the compromise.

P: You don’t think you can do it without compromise?

R: No. You can’t. Do you realize that senators have to raise $10,000 every week to stay in office? You’ve got to be on the phone making compromises to someone to get that kind of cash.

P: But if you were running for office, how would you deal with character issues when they came up? How should Clinton and other politicians handle this?

R: "Mind your own fucking business." That’s what I would say. And I wouldn’t even get elected. And I’d probably deck a couple of people, too which would not play very well with the national media.

P: Bob Roberts was the first feature film you directed. How did you feel when Robert Altman compared you to Orson Welles?

R: At first I was incredibly flattered. Then I started thinking about the ramifications. What does that mean? That Hollywood is going to torture me for the rest of my life? [Laughs] The guy couldn’t get a film made after The Magnificent Ambersons and they recut that. So, you know, I was flattered but wary.

P: After Bob Roberts came out, you got offers to direct studio pictures. Does that interest you?

R: It would depend on the script. I definitely will not direct a film just for the job or for the money. It’s too much of a pain and too much of a heartache to do something you don’t truly believe in. it’s just so torturous.

P: What’s the difference between what you get out of acting and what you get out of directing?

R: You get money out of acting. You get gray hair out of directing. Actually, I get more of a rush from directing.

P: Why?

R: Because directing is creating a whole. You’re able to combine different elements and create a film or a piece of theater that is unique and true to your vision.

P: You’ve worked for a lot of the top directors of your time. Give us thumbnail sketches of a few of them, if you would. Start with Rob Reiner [The Sure Thing]

R: Incredibly talented. Loves actors. Fun to be around. I would work with him again in a second.

P: Tony Scott [Top Gun].

R: he’s a wild man. He loves his motorcycles and he’s got a kind of great, arrogant attitude toward life. I didn’t work with him that much on that film just a couple of weeks.

P: Robert Altman [The Player, Short Cuts, Pret-a-Porter].

R: I feel real fortunate to have had the opportunity to work with him. He has taught me a lot about filmmaking and about survival, about how to keep your soul and how to know your priorities and how to live up to them.

P: Spike Lee [Jungle Fever].

R: I like Spike a lot. He’s incredibly gifted and I don’t think he gets the credit he deserves as a filmmaker.

P: Ron Shelton [Bull Durham].

R: I had a lot of fun working with Ron. He’s a good friend and the godfather of my son Jack Henry. He taught me a great lesson about writing women’s roles, which is: Write the character as a man, then switch the gender later.

P: How about Adrian Lyne [Jacob’s Ladder]?

R: Very visual.

P: That’s diplomatic. The Coen brothers [Hudsucker Proxy]?

R: I think their films are going to be appreciated by more people later. They’re visionaries, but I don’t know if they’ll ever do a commercial film. And for all their bizarreness, they’re two of the most normal guys I know.

P: Tim Robbins [Bob Roberts]?

R: What a bastard. I would never work for him again.