HR: Yeah. I have four normal systems and one 5.1 home theater system. I'm a total gear guy. I have two DVD setups. For the big epic films I do the home theater scene and I have a whole room for it. For the HBO specials and documentaries I just do it in my bedroom. I just watched the entire first season of The Sopranos in one weekend. The DVD box set was a Christmas present from my manager.
PB: Are you a fan of that show?
HR: Huge. I don't have cable, so I never get to see it. I'd see it in hotel rooms for 20 minutes at a time, so I took in the whole first season and loved it. I met Lorraine Bracco who plays the analyst lady on the TV show a few months ago. She's an extremely classy lady who's really gorgeous and cool. It made me like the show even better. Not to mention that those people can act their asses off.
PB: Don't tell me you're watching Sex in the City, too.
HR: No. Like I said, I don't have cable. I have two TV sets and neither is hooked up with any channels. I just use them to watch videos and movies. On the road, in a hotel, I'll watch TV, so I've seen a few of those shows. The only way I'd get cable is to watch the History Channel, the Biography Channel and any of those animal shows. I love that stuff. I'm not going to watch Seinfeld. As good as it may be, it's not how I want to invest an hour. I'd rather have my nose in a book or sit in front of good monitors and listen to music. TV was always super de-emphasized in the house I grew up in with my mom. We'd watch TV on this index card-size screen. She tried to make it as unappetizing as possible. I would turn it on and she'd automatically give me shit. By the time I was 15, TV didn't mean much except for watching Saturday Night Live. Past that I grew up with my mom's records -- Miles Davis, John Coltrane, Bob Dylan -- the good stuff. So, I live like I was raised, with walls of books and tons of music. I felt like I was slumming it with The Sopranos. I really felt dirty afterward like, "I just sat on my ass for 12 hours." It was fun, but I kind of wanted to get through quickly and just be done with it. It was like eating three extra slices of cake. I knew I should have been reading.
PB: What were the first DVDs you ran out and bought when you got a DVD player?
HR: Apocalypse Now, Caddyshack, Stripes, Animal House, A Streetcar Named Desire, Sling Blade, some Hitchcock, Raging Bull.... I bought like a dozen at once. It was all just the sort of primary colors you have to have, you know, the staples. I bought all of the Criterion Collections that I had laser discs of, such as Kurasawa. I think the actual first DVD I bought was Dr. Strangelove. I can watch that at least every other week -- no problem. When the Godfather movies come out on DVD I will be customer number one.
PB: You have small roles in three movies coming out soon. What's the first one to be released?
