
- He is a great actor, with a very high ratio of hits to misses.
- He was friends with Hunter S Thompson* and Marlon Brando. He is also acquainted with Bob Dylan.
- He takes salary cuts for excellent (but under-funded) directors**.
- He chooses excellent roles.
- He is an excellent painter***.
- He is a guitarist****.
- He not only shrugged off Ricky Gervais' attempts to embarrass him at the Golden Globes, he totally buried him with the single line: "Oh boy, he's fun."
- He has been in some of my favourite ever films, including Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas and Edward Scissorhands.
- His production company, Infinitum Nihil, not only funds cool films that would otherwise struggle to get distributed, but it also has a imprint which does the same thing with books - including Woody Guthrie's "lost" novel, House of Earth.
- His "Inside the Actor's Studio" interview was amazing.
** Like Terry Gilliam.
*** See the Alice in Wonderland bluray, for example.
**** And I heard he actually made Keith Richard's guitar for his pirates cameo.