P: We understand, but we’re going to keep knocking on that door. It’s our job.

R: Well, you can knock as much as you like. [Laughs]

P: What do you think of most celebrity journalism?

R: I like interviews like this one in Playboy, where it’s really just the words. I tend to read those more. They’re really just about what the person has to say, rather than the interpretation of the person writing the profile. I have certainly run into both types. Some people are pretty accurate with what you say, but there are other journalists who’d be a lot happier if you treated them like your father confessor and opened up in that Barbara Walters way. You know, people decry sexuality on TV, but they’re making shows like Hard Copy – I don’t even want to mention the name of that show, you can cut that out – but people are making these tabloid news shows that are spreading rumors and are so disrespectful of people’s privacy. And people love it. People love that stuff.

P: Why?

R: Because it’s human nature. They want to know who’s fucking who, and they just love a good tawdry story, whether it’s true or not. Forget the people’s reputations. Forget their feelings. If it’s a good rumor and it makes good copy, it becomes news.

P: Why are you so guarded about your personal life, especially about your relationship with Susan?

R: I think the love between two people is a sacred and private thing. It cheapens it to talk about it in front of millions of people. It’s unnecessary. When other people do it, I suppose that I have a morbid fascination with it, but mostly I’m just embarrassed for them.

P: But the interest in you derives both from your visibility and popularity and from the fact that you happen to live with a woman whom, frankly, millions of men lust for.

R: You left out the part about the hundreds of thousands of women lusting for me. [Laughs]

P: That too.

R: Well, I don’t know that that’s true, and I never - it never enters my thinking.

P: Do you at least understand the curiosity?

R: Sure, I understand the curiosity. But that doesn’t mean that I have to buy into it.

P: what is hardest about balancing two careers and a relationship?

R: Finding time to go out to dinner.

P: You know, on several occasions Playboy has asked Susan to pose for the magazine. What would you think about that?

R: What would I think about Susan posing nude?

P: Yes.

R: If it was something that was going to make her happy, I don’t think I would care.

P: What do you remember most about first meeting her?

R: I guess I met her at the audition for Bull Durham. I remember thinking that she was beautiful and smart.

P: Had you thought of her as a sex symbol prior to that?

R: No. I thought of her as a really good actress.

P: Have you ever had a relationship this serious or long-lasting?

R: No.

P: What’s the difference between the dynamic with an older woman and one with someone your own age or younger?

R: I don’t think about it in those terms. I wouldn’t generalize like that.

P: How about in terms of your own experience?

R: Age hasn’t been a factor.

P: Really?

R: No. Each person is who they are. I’ve met young women who are old; I’ve met older women who are young.

P: Where does Susan fall in that spectrum?

R: It’s none of your business.

P: In her Playboy Interview, Susan said that younger men have an easier time dealing with strong women because they’ve been brought up in an age of feminism, where there are more strong women. Do you think that’s true?

R: No. I think that is a broad generalization.

P: When Vice President Dan Quayle blamed Murphy Brown for the riots in Los Angeles, he made some remarks about the fabric of family life coming apart because of the number of children born out of wedlock. You’ve discussed what you think of those statements, but did you take it personally, based on the fact that you and Susan aren’t married and have kids?

R: Not at all. I don’t take anything any politician says personally. Especially idiotic ones.

P: What’s the longest relationship you’ve had prior to this one?

R: Seven months.

P: Ever come close to getting married before?

R: No.

P: Why?

R: The person didn’t fascinate me enough.

P: Here’s one who does and yet you’re still not married.

R: We are married for all intents and purposes. We have two kids together. We’ve been together for seven years. I’d say that’s married.

P: Why are people so fascinated by the fact that you are not legally, technically married?

R: I don’t know. I really don’t know.

P: Perhaps it’s the implication that there’s always an out - that you can just leave without having to go through the legal hassles of a divorce.

R: That’s not true.

P: why?

R: Because you can still be sued by your mate.

P: Yet you haven’t taken the legal step. Is there a particular reason?

R: No.

P: What do you think of the institution of marriage in general?

R: Whatever gets you through the night.

P: Are you always this evasive?

R: You’re knocking on my door. [Laughs]

P: That’s right. But we’re also at the point where we feel compelled to ask: What is it like to get into bed with Susan Sarandon every night?

R: [Pauses] Aren’t you embarrassed to ask that question?

P: It’s the question that almost any man would want to ask.

R: But would you ask that question of a stranger on a bus or a train? You would -

P: But you’re not a stranger. You’re a celebrity -

R: You would get punched out, man.

P: That’s probably true.

R: So why do I have to have this sense of civility?

P: Certainly you must be aware that men think this way.

R: No. Actually I wasn’t until you just said it.

P: Come on. Now you’re being disingenuous. We don’t really expect you to answer the question, but you can’t say you don’t understand the curiosity of the average man, the guy who thinks, Geez, he gets to go to bed every night with Susan Sarandon. How do you feel about that?

R: I don’t feel anything about that. That’s an artificial reality.

P: Ok.

R: And if you think I’m going to waste my time thinking about what other people are thinking, you’ve got to be crazy. That way lies madness.