Playboy Interview: Harvey Keitel

Harvey Keitel is sitting in the lounge at the Four Seasons hotel in Los Angeles, wearing a dark shirt, dark sports jacket, dark sweatpants and no socks (''I like to be comfortable,'' he tells his guest), when the producer of his new movie, ''Clockers,'' walks by. Keitel bounds from his chair. ''You got a few minutes?'' he says before the man has a chance to escape. ''I'd like to talk with you about the ending of the film. Just some small things, you know?'' A beleaguered look crosses the producer's face--he knows only too well that he's been nabbed by an actor who has seen a rough cut and knows just how to fix it. When Keitel sits back down he is resigned to defeat. ''Well, that didn't do much good,'' he says. But once again, he has made his views known.

Keitel is used to struggle. As one of the most talented and daring actors of his generation, he has brought intensity and tightly coiled anger to more than 50 films. But stardom nearly eluded him. While the creative group he started with (which included director Martin Scorsese and actor Robert De Niro) achieved acclaim quickly, Keitel labored in secondary roles and sometimes couldn't get work at all. It wasn't for lack of talent, though it might have been from his reluctance to become grist for the Hollywood movie mill. He took himself too seriously for some--he was opinionated and occasionally difficult--and he gladly abandoned mainstream assignments for smaller salaries in offbeat, independent movies or art films made in Europe. His efforts didn't begin to pay off until earlier this decade, when he made a number of memorable films that increased his visibility, bankability and behind-the-scenes power.

His first hit of the Nineties was ''Thelma and Louise,'' followed by his Oscar-nominated portrayal of gangster Mickey Cohen in ''Bugsy.'' Then came ''Sister Act'' with Whoopi Goldberg, which further enhanced his box office appeal. But stardom and its trappings have never been of primary concern to Keitel. Instead of capitalizing on his newfound clout to get bigger roles in bigger films, he used it to help the young writer of a script called ''Reservoir Dogs.'' Keitel worked feverishly to get the movie produced, insisting that the writer, Quentin Tarantino, direct the film. Keitel even helped cast it. It marked a turning point in both their careers.

He followed ''Reservoir Dogs'' with an intense performance in Abel Ferrara's ''Bad Lieutenant,'' about a depraved and corrupt cop's descent into his own personal hell. By the time he stood naked and screaming for all the world to see, it was clear that Keitel had taken his career--and perhaps his life--to another level. According to critic David Thomson: ''If other actors did what Keitel's been doing lately, you'd fear for them. You'd wonder about suicidal urges.'' A writer for ''Vogue'' observed that he appeared to draw the line nowhere. And writer Nick Tosches noted that his work ''has become a sort of sacrificial altar at the center of his own mystery rite, a purification by fire of every fear, a cry to heaven from hell.''

In the Oscar-winning picture ''The Piano,'' Keitel played a brutish yet sensitive Englishman who settles in New Zealand and adopts the Maori culture. He also appeared as a ''cleaner'' in ''Pulp Fiction,'' directed by his friend Tarantino, and starred in ''Smoke'' and in ''Blue in the Face,'' an improvisational film that developed out of ''Smoke.''

Throughout this remarkable run, the 56-year-old actor has continued to appear in independent and low-budget films, encouraging young filmmakers and always delving deeper into his own psyche, drawing forth the demons most actors suppress.

There is darkness in Keitel's personal life as well. He is currently embroiled in an ugly custody fight with his former lover, actress Lorraine Bracco, over their 10-year-old daughter, Stella. Bracco is now married to actor Edward James Olmos, and Keitel maintains that Olmos was accused of child molestation in 1992--in fact, Keitel says he knew the 14-year-old victim and her family. According to Keitel, the charges apparently were dropped when the family was paid a large sum of money by Olmos. The feud among Keitel and Olmos and Bracco has spilled into the press because of Keitel's belief that Olmos bought his way out of the molestation charges. Olmos and Bracco have steadfastly denied the charges, and the fighting grows increasingly vicious.

Keitel's feistiness against his enemies is no surprise. His life has not been easy, and he's a natural, if reluctant, fighter. He was born in the Brighton Beach section of Brooklyn on May 13, 1939. His mother was Romanian, his father Polish, and they owned a luncheonette, where Keitel worked. He grew up in a home that didn't emphasize books or education, and he didn't find school stimulating. He left one high school (Abraham Lincoln) and was thrown out of another (Alexander Hamilton). When he was 17, he and his two best friends enlisted in the Marines. Within two years he was keeping the peace in war-torn Beirut.

When he returned to civilian life he had no idea what he wanted to do. He sold shoes in Manhattan for a year, then, following the lead of his older brother, worked as a court stenographer for eight years. Every year during that period he auditioned for the famed Actors Studio--and every year he was rejected. Finally, in 1974, he was accepted.

In 1965 he met a struggling student director named Martin Scorsese, who was looking to cast his film ''Who's That Knocking at My Door?'' Keitel was given the lead. In 1973 he appeared in ''Mean Streets,'' which established the careers of Scorsese and Robert De Niro, but not Keitel. Scorsese also cast him as a woman beater in ''Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore'' and as Jodie Foster's pimp in ''Taxi Driver.''

Finally he got his big break--only to have it turn into disaster. Francis Coppola chose him for the lead in his Vietnam opus, ''Apocalypse Now,'' but two weeks into shooting the actor and the director clashed. Coppola fired Keitel and replaced him with Martin Sheen.

Despite this blow to his ego, Keitel continued to work. In 1977, he appeared in Ridley Scott's ''The Duellists.'' He had roles in James Toback's ''Fingers'' and in Paul Schrader's ''Blue Collar,'' as well as in ''Eagle's Wing,'' ''Deathwatch,'' ''Bad Timing: A Sensual Obsession,'' ''The Border'' and ''Saturn 3.''

None of these films made Keitel a household name or brought him great wealth, so he wound up making films in France and Italy. In 1984 he appeared on Broadway in David Rabe's ''Hurlyburly'' and in Sam Shepard's ''A Lie of the Mind.''

He returned to films, appearing in dozens of movies, most notably Scorsese's ''Last Temptation of Christ'' and Jack Nicholson's ''The Two Jakes,'' the disappointing sequel to ''Chinatown.'' He went to Bosnia and Herzegovina for ''The Gaze of Odysseus.'' And there's the just-released ''Clockers,'' Spike Lee's film, which is based on the best-selling novel by Richard Price, and another Tarantino-scripted film, ''From Dusk Till Dawn.''

Keitel is single and lives in the Tribeca section of Manhattan, although he is constantly traveling from one film location to the next. Despite his workload, he doesn't do many interviews, and getting him to promote himself is difficult. When he does, he says it's because he wants to pass on something to the next generation of actors. He's on the board of the Actors Studio and feels it's important to be there for others.

Playboy sent Contributing Editor Lawrence Grobel (whose last interview was with Mel Gibson) to find out more about this powerful, enigmatic actor. Grobel reports:

''I talked with Harvey in Los Angeles and in New York, at his hotel, in restaurants, at his apartment. He was rarely in one place for more than two days. At one point I met with him at a restaurant in New York. He was with writer-director Jane Campion. As soon as I sat down, she turned on her video camera and began filming me, so I took out my tape recorder and started interviewing her--about Harvey. Harvey seemed bemused at the media circus he had created. I asked Campion why she cast him in 'The Piano,' and she said it was because of his work, which is 'tender and masculine.' She then admitted that she had been so intimidated by Keitel that she rehearsed conversations with him. 'I was so afraid of you, and scared about whether you'd let me direct my movie,' she told him. Keitel laughed. He knows he has a daunting reputation but claims he can be easy to work with--if you don't get in his way.

''Our last conversation was at a restaurant in Beverly Hills, where he accidentally dipped the sleeve of his linen sports jacket in olive oil. After trying to get the stain out with water, he finally gave the jacket to our waiter, who rushed it to a nearby dry cleaner. During this conversation, as in all the others, Keitel proved to be a difficult, elusive subject. He keeps his personal life private and often talks about his more public endeavors in vague metaphysical terms. After some effort, the portrait of a complex and fiercely intelligent man finally emerged. Keitel may love acting, but the promotional part of show business clearly leaves him cold. Not that being a star doesn't have its rewards--his jacket was returned, clean and pressed, by the time we finished eating.''

Playboy:Clockers was a popular novel before Spike Lee took it on as a film. Do you think it will be a big picture?

Keitel: I really don't want to talk about it.

Playboy: You don't want to talk about the movie? Come on, Harvey, this is the promotional part of the interview. You get to plug away before we start in on you.

Keitel: I find this somehow a bit wasteful.

Playboy: Well, this is unique--an actor who doesn't want to promote his work. Wait until Universal Pictures reads this.

Keitel: I have a principle of not speaking about films I've done until an audience sees them, because I want the audience to come to them fresh and without my influence.

Playboy: The movie will be in theaters by the time this comes out. Did Martin Scorsese ever consider directing it?

Keitel: Marty was going to direct it at one point, but then he became the executive producer and Spike wanted to direct it.

Playboy: What did you think of working with Spike Lee?

Keitel: Spike is a colorful character who has a great sense of responsibility to his people and to the community. We shouldn't let his actions on the basketball court cloud this fact.

Playboy: What attracted you to the film?

Keitel: The central theme. There are important social and cultural issues in Clockers that are relevant to our wellbeing and evolution. The characters include a cop, a poor black kid, blue-collar workers. One of the issues the story addresses is the danger we have of becoming self-righteous, and how that can have a deadly effect.

Playboy: Care to be more specific?

Keitel: That's about it. You think Universal's going to shoot me?

Playboy: We think Universal is probably afraid of you--you're so intense.

Keitel: A psychiatrist once said to me, ''You are very intense.'' I got upset. I was insulted. It took me a long time to learn that my intense feelings are nothing to be ashamed of.

Playboy: You must be aware of how people react to you. You've developed a reputation as a powerful actor willing to dare exposure.

Keitel: I'm smiling now as you say dare. I mean, that's what I do. I don't know what to say, except that it comes naturally to me. You want to call it daring? OK. I look at it as being.

Playboy: Has your intensity--or your being--ever intimidated the directors you've worked with?

Keitel: At times I allowed myself to be bullied to the point where I knew they couldn't fire me, and then I gave it back. In the creative process no one should be bullied. There have been a few instances when directors wanted to push me around to satisfy their egos, so I became difficult. They weren't interested in any sort of a collaboration.

Playboy: Did you like the results of any of those films?

Keitel: They always stunk.

Playboy: Do you have favorite films among the more than 50 you've been in?

Keitel: Does it matter?

Playboy: Let's say that someone wants to put on a Harvey Keitel film festival. Which eight or ten films would you recommend?

Keitel: I've been asked about doing such a festival and I declined. I didn't feel it was the right time. So why discuss this now? Let's wait until I'm dead.

Playboy: Has your work improved over the years?

Keitel: I suppose. Some of the work I've done recently is interesting to me.

Playboy: Let's talk about some of that recent work. When did you start becoming what the industry calls a bankable actor?

Keitel: I think it was at the release of The Two Jakes.

Playboy: That was a troubled picture-- the sequel to Chinatown--which Jack Nicholson wound up directing.

Keitel: He did a great job directing the film, and I've wondered why that isn't recognized.

Playboy: Maybe because the film was a bomb.

Keitel: I don't think it was the fault of Jack's direction.

Playboy: What was at fault?

Keitel: The text. The script was in disarray. [Screenwriter] Robert Towne had left the project, and we were working day and night on it.

Playboy: You worked with Nicholson earlier in The Border. What do you think of him?

Keitel: The truest thing I can say about Jack is that he stood up for me. When others wanted to fire me from The Two Jakes, he wouldn't allow it.

Playboy: You followed The Two Jakes with Mortal Thoughts, which starred Demi Moore and Bruce Willis----

Keitel: I don't think I did that good a job on the film. Can we leave it at that?

Playboy: How short do you want this interview to be? Thelma and Louise was next, and it was a major breakthrough for you. Do you think it helped change how men think about women?

Keitel: If if didn't, it should have.

Playboy: Then you were nominated as best supporting actor for Bugy. What did that mean to you?

Keitel: Not much. I didn't get the Oscar.

Playboy: You once played Bugsy Siegel in The Virginia Hill Story. How did your Bugsy compare with Warren Beatty's?

Keitel: I once heard someone say that comparisons are odious.

Playboy: Who said that?

Keitel: Marlon Brando.

Playboy: Whom you met back in 1967 when you were an extra in John Huston's Reflections in a Golden Eye.

Keitel: I was an extra among a couple hundred young actors playing soldiers. You can't see me in it.

Playboy: Did you do anything to get noticed by Huston or Brando?

Keitel: Yeah, I did. I introduced myself to Marlon. I walked up to him and said, ''Marlon, I'm on my final audition at the Actors Studio and I just want to shake your hand.''

Playboy: What did he say?

Keitel: He didn't say anything, just ''Ahhh, ahhh.''

Playboy: And did you get into the Actors Studio after that?

Keitel: No, not for another couple of years. You're allowed to audition only once a year and I kept failing. It took me about eight years.

Playboy: That says something about your persistence. How sad did you feel each time you failed?

Keitel: Sad? That's mild. I was so humiliated, so miserable that I couldn't get in.

Playboy: Why did you want it so badly?

Keitel: It had tradition, something was being passed on. There was a standard that was aspired to.

Playboy: When did you start feeling this way about acting?

Keitel: I was working as a court stenographer and a co-worker asked me if I wanted to take some acting classes. We went and I was attracted to these people who were creating stories and telling them on-screen. A powerful dynamic was going on that I didn't know anything about. I had never even seen a play. There was something about acting that put me in touch with forces that I felt aligned to and were important to me to know, to own. It gave me hope that I would become a member of a group of people who knew themselves: Jimmy Dean, Brando, Elia Kazan. The reason I became an actor was to get closer to the mystery.

Playboy: Is that the mystery of understanding yourself?

Keitel: Yes, and I'm infinitely closer to it today. I've solved a lot of mysteries that have separated me from my feelings.

Playboy: How did you feel when you were finally accepted into the Actors Studio?

Keitel: It was a great day for me. I felt I'd accomplished something I had always dreamed of. It was after I'd done Mean Streets, and one of the stalwarts of the Studio told me she went up there and said, ''You either let him in this time or I'm telling him not to audition again. Don't put him through this anymore.''

Playboy: You studied with Frank Corsaro, Lee Strasberg, Stella Adler, Penny Allen. What did they teach you about the business?

Keitel: They didn't teach me anything about the business. They taught me something more important. They were interested in humanity, in expression, in change, in enlightenment, in art. It was a Zen-like experience. In a book I read about a Zen approach to art, a painter says he wants to paint bamboo. But before he can do that he has to sleep with bamboo, touch bamboo and eat bamboo. Then he has the right to paint it. In a way, the work I did with these teachers was important to my becoming an actor. They had me eat bamboo.

Playboy: Is that a painful process?

Keitel: It's not painful. It's bliss, it's enchanting. If there is pain, then that's the experience the actor has going through hell on his way to being enlightened.

Playboy: Still, there are certain performances--yours in Bad Lieutenant or De Niro's in Raging Bull--that appear to take an actor through hellish depths that many prefer to avoid.

Keitel: Technique is technique. Every actor should do the research that certain actors are famous for, where everyone says, ''Oh, wow, so-and-so actually slept in a hole in the ground.'' Well, you're supposed to do that.

Playboy: Are you able to distance yourself from the characters you play?

Keitel: You're always thinking about the character, but you don't become him--otherwise you'd be a psychopath. If I were playing the pimp in Taxi Driver during this interview, I'd probably be thinking about that and seeing what I could find here with you that I could use. How would I behave if I weren't speaking as Harvey but as the pimp?

Playboy: To play that pimp, you actually worked with one. How did you get to meet him?

Keitel: Somebody introduced us. We did a series of improvisations in which I would play the prostitute and he'd treat me a certain way. Then we'd switch and he'd play the girl. He taught me about how the girls were treated. He said, ''This isn't the old school where you beat up on the girls. You love them.'' It took me a long time to understand what he meant. I kept asking him, ''You mean you really love them?'' He said, ''Yes, you love them.'' He said, ''If you say you're going to take a girl to dinner, you take her. She wants to go on a vacation, you take her.'' The scene in which I dance with Jodie arose from what he had taught me.

Playboy: Critic David Thomson called that dance ''the creepiest scene in a disturbing movie, and it was Keitel's first monster.''

Keitel: I can understand why he said that. Here's a man who is doing the job of a pimp and a girl who is working as a prostitute. It's monstrous, it's horrible. But that wasn't my approach to it. My approach was as a working man. Often, pimps are brilliant people caught up in life's misfortunes. It's like this whole debate going on about the welfare system: Is it the fault of the poor or of their circumstances? I believe a great deal of it has to do with their circumstances, not just because they are irresponsible.

Playboy: Could you tell then what kind of career was ahead for Jodie?

Keitel: Yes, because of something that happened that I'll always remember. I was on the set with Jodie and her mother, Brandy. I didn't know Brandy well, but she was always pleasant. She began to give me a lecture about Hollywood. I politely listened and kept quiet. She was going on and on, and at one point this little 12-year-old girl jumped in and said, ''Mom, he knows.'' There was something in her tone, in the way she said it.

Playboy: Your part was small, but it was memorable.

Keitel: I worked only a week on Taxi Driver. I was doing Death of a Salesman on Broadway and worked nights on the film after the play.

Playboy: George C. Scott had the title role in that play. How did you get along with him?

Keitel: I'm not going to discuss Death of a Salesman.

Playboy: Why?

Keitel: It was another stage in my evolution as an actor. I didn't handle myself very well. It was painful. I was lost.

Playboy: George C. Scott can be pretty intimidating.

Keitel: I don't think I'm going to discuss Scott. We had out time together and that was that. I was not intimidated. It just wasn't a good time for me. I was running adrift. I had nothing to hang on to and I was uncertain about my technique. It took me a while to understand that it wasn't that I didn't know what I was doing. I knew as much as I would ever know. I needed to work on where I was from--the streets of Brooklyn. I needed to know that. It was my steps on the streets of where I grew up that I needed to walk again in order to own myself.

Playboy: In 1978 you appeared nude in Fingers. Was that uncomfortable?

Keitel: There was a scene in which my character did certain things. This is hard for many actors to do.

Playboy: But at least it draws attention.

Keitel: I couldn't give one damn about that. That's not the focus or where my attention goes.

Playboy: Attention, though, was certainly paid when you appeared in the buff in both Bad Lieutenant and The Piano.

Keitel: I've never done a nude scene.

Playboy: You could have fooled us.

Keitel: An actor tells a story the way his conscience dictates is best to tell it. Actors do not do nude scenes. They play events in the story. Whether they're dressed or undressed is up to their conscience and their artistic sense. I want to be clear about this point. Is it clear that I'm not actually doing nude scenes?

Playboy: What you're saying is that you're not doing them, your character is. Sounds as if you're splitting hairs.

Keitel: I'm not.

Playboy: What is your opinion of Jane Campion's The Piano?

Keitel: Masterpiece.

Playboy: Your best film?

Keitel: One of the best. I see her as a goddess.

Playboy: And what about Tarantino?

Keitel: Quentin's an enormous power from which we can expect a great deal. I've been very lucky--I met Martin Scorsese when he began and Quentin Tarantino when he began.

Playboy: You were actually instrumental in getting him started when you agreed to co-produce and star in Reservoir Dogs. Was anyone else being considered to direct that?

Keitel: At one time somebody was, yes. But I didn't want to do it without Quentin directing. As a first-time director he did an astonishing job, though I thought he could have gone further. Everyone can go further. And Quentin did with Pulp Fiction, which was an extraordinary piece of writing and direction.

Playboy: How could Reservoir Dogs have gone further?

Keitel: Perhaps there was some way to make the universal quest more obvious to an audience.

Playboy: You may have a point--most people saw it as a violent movie, not one of some Arthurian quest.

Keitel: I never saw it as a violent film.

Playboy: You don't see nudity and violence in your films that are noted for their nudity and violence. Are we operating in parallel universes here?

Keitel: It's a question of semantics. Yes, there is violence in Reservoir Dogs, but I see it as a story in which violence takes place. I see it more as a story about a man who is in need of nourishing a younger man, of being a father figure, of being an example. It's a quest we're all on.

Playboy: Would you say that the corrupt cop you played in Bad Lieutenant is also Everyman?

Keitel: I might have to let that work speak for itself.

Playboy: Would you agree, though, that it was your out-on-a-limb rawness that people went to see?

Keitel: I don't feel I can talk about myself that way. He was a man who was in his own creation of hell, who wanted something more than being human, and maybe there was more to be had.

Playboy: We have to ask this, Harvey: In that scene where your character pulls over the two girls and gets them to simulate a blow job and show an ass while he whacks off--did you improvise?

Keitel: The idea was all there. It was written.

Playboy: One critic observed that you appear to draw the line nowhere. How do you see the film?

Keitel: I see it as a religious film. In any religion it is said that to find the light one must descend very deeply into the darkness.

Playboy: It got pretty dark, particularly when you had your own daughter, Stella, appear in a scene where you are zonked out on a couch. She was just six then. Were you concerned that you would scare her with your depiction of depravation?

Keitel: It was my decision. I explained the scene to her. I told her that this man wasn't a very responsible father and that he should be paying more attention to his child. He should be looking at the pictures she draws instead of being drunk and drugged.

Playboy: Were you disappointed that the film you did with Madonna, Dangerous Game, disappeared quickly?

Keitel: I can't say that I'm shocked it disappeared. There were brilliant things in that film, but the central story was lacking. It needed some work, which we failed to do.

Playboy: Do you think Madonna's fame wound up hurting the picture?

Keitel: I don't think so, because truth is more powerful than any celebrity or star. I thought she was excellent. She's committed to her work.

Playboy: Some of the sex scenes in Dangerous Game are quite brutal. How close is sex to violence?

Keitel: A stone's throw away.

Playboy: Would you say that Game is about despair?

Keitel: The truthful answer is yes. It's a story about the complete failure to cope with life's problems. The problems are dealt with in destructive ways.

Playboy: You often sound like someone who has spent time talking with shrinks.

Keitel: I've been through analysis, and it has played an important and weighty role. The education I received in analysis is relevant to my existence and my evolution. In one of his books, Joseph Campbell compares the role of psychiatrists today to that of mythological guides. I agree with that analogy.

Playboy: In your quest for understanding and becoming, have you ever dropped acid?

Keitel: There have been a lot of things I wanted to do. Acid wasn't one of them.

Playboy: Ever injected anything?

Keitel: No.

Playboy: What stopped you?

Keitel: Fear of dying. There have been times in my life I thought the pain would never stop, and I wanted to die. I learned that that changes. And from that I gained the ability to face any fear.

Playboy: Have you ever contemplated suicide?

Keitel: Yes, but I'm not going to do it.

Playboy: Have you ever had any drug or alcohol problems that you had to get through?

Keitel: I've had many problems in my life that I've had to get through, beginning with being a little boy.

Playboy: Did you grow up feeling that Brooklyn was the center of the universe?

Keitel: I grew up in Brighton Beach and went to school in Coney Island. I like the streets, I need the streets, I need the hubbub. Brooklyn is a culture unto itself--Italian immigrants, Jewish immigrants, the music, the dances. It was an incredibly colorful place to grow up.

Playboy: Were you close with your mother and father?

Keitel: I'm not sure I'm willing to discuss this.

Playboy: Why not?

Keitel: I'm a little concerned that if I share this, I'll do harm to some part of myself.

Playboy: Are your parents alive?

Keitel: My father is.

Playboy: Did you have a happy family?

Keitel: You know something, I'd like to go back to that last question and say: I don't want to answer that.

Playboy: Instead of?

Keitel: Instead of ''My father is alive.''

Playboy: This is just about family, Harvey.

Keitel: There are some things I could damage myself with if I were to talk about them.

Playboy: Whom were you closer to, your mother or your father?

Keitel: Maybe another time I will talk about these things. I have to think about this. It sort of reminds me of the Indians who object to having their pictures taken. They feel something's being taken away.

Playboy: Can you talk about your grandparents?

Keitel: I didn't know them. I do remember my grandfather sitting at the kitchen table in Brooklyn, making me read from my Hebrew book. My brother, who is five years older, stuck his head in the kitchen and said: ''Aleph baiz, gimme a raise, ches, tea, kiss mein ess.'' Then he ran out, with my grandfather hollering at him. I couldn't believe my brother had done that. I was scared to death.

Playboy: You were studying Hebrew in preparation for your bar mitzvah?

Keitel: Yeah.

Playboy: Did you come from a religious home?

Keitel: Traditional Jewish family. It was a kosher house for the most part. When I was in the Marines, guys used to fight to sit next to me in boot camp because when they served meat I wouldn't drink the milk. I'd give it away instead.

Playboy: You once spat on a mezuzah, which contains a fragment from the Torah and which many Jews keep on their door. Do you remember why?

Keitel: I wasn't ashamed of being a Jew. I had just lost faith. There was so much misery and so much deprivation. I didn't understand how God fit into that. I thought God was responsible. I didn't know then that people are responsible, because we are gods. Back then someone said to me, ''It's people like you who are the true believers.'' I spat on the mezuzah again. That person was right, though. It's been a long journey, but I've come back.

Playboy: Were you a tough kid?

Keitel: You had to be tough, otherwise you were considered a fag, a sissy. We used to have rock fights with black people. I recall them coming to our park to beat up some white kids. This black kid, he was cool, said to me, ''Harvey, get out of here because they're coming.'' I told him I couldn't do that. I had some black friends, and we'd kid one another. The divisiveness and the rock fights always seemed absurd to us. I threw rocks at them and they threw rocks at me.

Playboy: Any permanent damage?

Keitel: This scar [pointing to head]. But I can't recall whether that was from a rock fight with black kids or white kids, because we also threw rocks at one another. But I was not a real tough guy.

Playboy: Weren't you a member of a gang called the Brighton Beach Sinners?

Keitel: They were a group of friends of mine. The name was created by the press after a serious incident of vandalism at a neighborhood school. We didn't consider ourselves great sinners.

Playboy: Did you stay out of fistfights?

Keitel: The Moose and Pittsburgh -- Howie and Carl--and I hung out together. We weren't tough the way the others were. We weren't hitters, that wasn't our cup of tea. Although one time an older guy tried to beat up Howie. That was a mistake. Only that kind of situation would provoke me to defend a friend. He deserved the stomping he got, in my humble opinion.

Playboy: Did you have any nicknames?

Keitel: We had seen a film about a tough guy named Chino. I liked him so I tried to get my friends to call me Chino. They said, ''Get the fuck out of here.''

Playboy: What actors did you relate to?

Keitel: I related to James Dean because he was in situations that we were in.

Playboy: Such as?

Keitel: My comrades and I didn't know about being nourished, and we didn't have the courage to love somebody. That wasn't something we pursued. We weren't brought up to nourish one another's thoughts, to discuss our deep conflicts.

Playboy: Is that what caused you to stutter as a boy?

Keitel: I still stutter. It started when I was about six or seven. In the Gnostic gospels it says that if you reveal what's inside you, what's inside you will save you. If you don't, it will destroy you. I think that's basically where the stuttering emanated from.

Playboy: From not revealing?

Keitel: From not revealing.

Playboy: Were you teased because you stuttered?

Keitel: Yes. It was very painful because I was shy to begin with.

Playboy: Stuttering was also a problem for James Earl Jones, who said he avoided emotional confrontations.

Keitel: Because confrontation means asserting yourself. Stuttering is an attempt to stop the assertion of the self.

Playboy: How frustrating did it get?

Keitel: I can't think of anything more frustrating or more detrimental to evolving than not allowing yourself whatever thought comes to mind.

Playboy: You mean you wouldn't allow yourself to think certain things?

Keitel: That's right. That's where stuttering begins. You learn it's wrong to have a certain thought, so if you have that thought, you say, ''I'm bad. I must get rid of the thought.'' But how do you get rid of a thought?

Playboy: Were these thoughts of a sexual nature?

Keitel: They weren't only of a sexual nature. They had to do with whatever needs a child might have.

Playboy: In other words, you were taught guilt at an early age?

Keitel: Guilt can be insidious, which helps to repress thoughts. You pick it up quickly--in your home, in the neighborhood. Once children are taught guilt, they will stutter in one way or another. Guilt is a device. We shouldn't repress anything. We should own our thoughts.

Playboy: What about thoughts that lead to action?

Keitel: We must own our actions too. But while we are not responsible for our thoughts, we do have a responsibility for our actions.

Playboy: What about our feelings?

Keitel: If you're ashamed of one feeling, you're going to be ashamed of all your feelings. That's the basis for neurosis. Unfortunately, as a youngster I learned that certain feelings and thoughts were bad. So, what do you do as a child? You choke yourself.

Playboy: And choking led to stuttering, which led to your inhibitions?

Keitel: Yes.

Playboy: Which led to analysis, where you realized that your sensitivity was OK and was actually something to be cultivated?

Keitel: Yes. I'm glad you said ''to be cultivated.'' As being nourished, as nourishing the soul.

Playboy: And did this eventually cause you to be satisfied with yourself?

Keitel: Yes, though self-satisfaction was unknown to me as a young man. That came late in my life. The pain of my journey led me to satisfaction. Avoiding the pain led to strangulation, to self-loathing. By descending into the pain I learned satisfaction.

Playboy: You're now dealing with pain in a custody battle with Lorraine Bracco over your daughter Stella. Lorraine is married to Edward James Olmos, who in 1992 was accused of molesting a 14-year-old girl. The case never went to court, so it remains only an accusation, but the press has covered it, and the name-calling has gotten pretty nasty. Obviously, it's not an easy subject to talk about, but would you be willing to say what you can about what's going on?

Keitel: I will not stifle you in your work, so go ahead and ask what you need to.

Playboy: Do you believe that your daughter lives with a possible child molester?

Keitel: He has been accused of that, but he denies it.

Playboy: In the July 25, 1994 issue of New York magazine, Olmos is quoted as having called you ''vicious and disturbed'' and ''out of control. He doesn't want Stella. He's using the whole situation to hurt Lorraine and myself.''

Keitel: He knows that statement is a lie. There is evidence in court that he paid $150,000 to the alleged victim's family, and of a secret agreement that he entered into with the parents of this child who made the allegation of molestation.

Playboy: Are you trying to get full custody of your daughter?

Keitel: We are involved in a custody suit now, yes.

Playboy: Did you sign over custody to Lorraine when you split up?

Keitel: Yes. My suit for custody was not brought until I found out about the money Olmos paid.

Playboy: What did you do after you found out about it?

Keitel: First I called the parents of the child. They wouldn't speak to me. I was stunned because I knew these people. Then I called Lorraine. She wouldn't speak to me.

Playboy: Did you ever talk with the girl who made the accusation against him?

Keitel: Yes.

Playboy: Olmos claims he was trying to protect his teenage son, who broke this girl's heart.

Keitel: His son was never accused of anything.

Playboy: Did you question your daughter about any suspicions you had concerning Olmos?

Keitel: I'm not going to go into that, except to say that I ensured the safety of my daughter as best I could, given that I do not have custody.

Playboy: How did you do that?

Keitel: As of this moment, there is a court order that prohibits him from being alone with my daughter without adult supervision. That order originally went into effect on October 20, 1993, and was modified slightly after the 14-year-old's testimony in January 1994 concerning the custody aspect of the case. Since that date Olmos and his son Bodie have given testimony and the court order remains in place.

Playboy: In that New York article Lorraine says that you are ''motivated by jealousy and hate.'' And in an August 8 letter to New York she wrote: ''Keitel is both a destructive and a self-destructive person. His jealousy and hatred at my happiness in my new marriage have reached a new low.''

Keitel: I'm not going to comment on my daughter's mother.

Playboy: After Michael Jackson's reported big payoff to the family of the child who accused him of something similar, does it seem to you that there are inequities in the justice system?

Keitel: It's a subject that needs exposure. This is an issue that all parents should be discussing, to protect their children. It's a very difficult area. That's why Linda Fairstein of the Manhattan district attorney's office formed a sex crimes division. She was the first in the country, I believe, to give children a place to come and discuss their abuse. Children need our protection.

Playboy: Have you talked with her?

Keitel: She was the one person who was good enough to give me information. She told me about the allegation of molestation and Olmos' money settlement. I didn't know about those things for about a year. And that's when my lawyers got involved.

Playboy: Did you confront Olmos about any of this?

Keitel: He wouldn't talk to me.

Playboy: But you tried?

Keitel: Yes.

Playboy: Was he afraid to talk to you?

Keitel: That doesn't matter. The time for him to talk to me was before he paid the money and entered into this secret agreement to hide these allegations from me.

Playboy: Before this problem arose, you said in Interview magazine, ''I am dying to see my child navigate the waters between the womb and death on her own terms, without her mother and me burdening her with our sins.'' Do you think that's still possible?

Keitel: No.

Playboy: Do you see it as sad?

Keitel: Very.

Playboy: Is she aware of what's going on?

Keitel: Yes.

Playboy: Will she be in the position of having to choose between parents?

Keitel: I have an obligation to protect my daughter, and I'm going to live up to that.

Playboy: Your own childhood was problematic. You went to Abraham Lincoln High School and then changed to Alexander Hamilton, which was a vocational school. What vocation were you studying?

Keitel: It was called escaping. I had trouble in high school. I was disoriented, and I didn't know who I was. I changed schools seeking another road. This turned out to be the beginning of my journey to adulthood. I tried to return to my old high school, Lincoln, but they wouldn't allow me back in. I was 17 and the irresponsible idiot of a dean said I was too old. Then I began to be truant at the vocational school and they threw me out. I just lost the desire to do anything.

Playboy: And then you joined the Marines.

Keitel: That was the first time I had a real sense of pride about myself, a sense of belonging to a group that's special. To this day I'm proud of being a Marine.

Playboy: In Dangerous Game your character talks about joining the Marines because he wants to vent his rage and kill somebody.

Keitel: That's one of the reasons I joined the Marines.

Playboy: Was that scene improvised?

Keitel: Yes.

Playboy: Did you feel that you wanted to kill when you became a Marine?

Keitel: Yes. Throughout my life I've had thoughts of killing. I defy anyone to say that they have not thought about killing someone. The exploration of these primordial feelings is what the entire journey is about.

Playboy: Have you ever experienced enormous rage and had to stop yourself from doing serious harm?

Keitel: Yes.

Playboy: How many times?

Keitel: Including you? [Laughs] I've always been able to control myself. It's normal to have those feelings. What you're not allowed to do is to act on them and harm someone. There are boundaries.

Playboy: Was the Marines a game for you?

Keitel: When my friends and I joined, it was to play some war. What do 17-year-olds know about war? Nothing. About starving and dying children? Nothing. But we knew about the quality of being a Marine because we had heard and read about it.

Playboy: When were you shipped to Lebanon?

Keitel: Two years later. Jews weren't normally allowed to be sent to the Middle East then, but it was an emergency situation--the threat that some Arab states were going to invade Lebanon--so they didn't separate me from my unit.

Playboy: Did you ever encounter racism in the Marines?

Keitel: I was called a kike once by a sergeant when we were alone. I called him a guinea. He said, ''Don't call me that.'' I said, ''Don't you call me a kike.'' He never said it again and we were OK.

Playboy: How good a shot were you at that time?

Keitel: Sharpshooter.

Playboy: So besides learning to shoot and venting your rage, what else did you get out of the Marines?

Keitel: I read a book for the first time. It was on Greek mythology. I wasn't exposed to literature as a young boy. I went into the Marine Corps and hadn't read a book in my life. I was such a Jew!

Playboy: What about girls--were you a virgin when you went into the Marines?

Keitel: Yes.

Playboy: And when you got out?

Keitel: No.

Playboy: What else surprised you about your time in Beirut?

Keitel: I saw for the first time men walking down the street arm in arm. I couldn't believe that. I had never seen anything like it. So when I got back to Brooklyn and a friend and I were walking down the street, I put my arm in his. He said, ''What are you doing?'' I said, ''They do this in Beirut.''

Playboy: And he said?

Keitel: ''Get the fuck out of here.''

Playboy: When you returned to civilian life you got a job selling shoes on 34th Street in Manhattan. How long did that job last?

Keitel: A good year.

Playboy: Did it heighten your awareness of feet?

Keitel: No, but I am enjoying your questions.

Playboy: What did you learn about the quality of shoes?

Keitel: That you get what you pay for.

Playboy: After that job you became a court stenographer. Was that easy to learn?

Keitel: To learn it is easy, to get your speed up is difficult.

Playboy: How good were you?

Keitel: I was good.

Playboy: Did you ever make mistakes?

Keitel: Before I answer that, let me call my lawyer to see if I'm still liable. Yes, I made mistakes.

Playboy: What kind of cases did you usually record?

Keitel: Traffic violations, drunk driving, narcotics, prostitution. The saddest thing was when I ran into a buddy of mine in the narcotics division. We had served in the Marines together. We just looked at each other and he smiled and shook his head as if to say, ''Wow, this is what you're doing.'' Then they took him to the holding pen.

Playboy: Court stenography must be a lonely job.

Keitel: It's solitary. You're silent all day.

Playboy: And you did this for how many years?

Keitel: Eight.

Playboy: Did it ever make you yearn for the Marines?

Keitel: I actually went to reenlist because I was very unhappy. I had not found my way on the path yet. But at the last minute something stopped me.

Playboy: Memory?

Keitel: You're not far from the truth. I worried more about getting stuck back on the base going through that banal, boring routine every day.

Playboy: Instead you became an actor.

Keitel: I began to get a sense that courage was something other than what I thought it was. I saw people such as Dean, Brando and John Cassavetes as being heroic. They began to take the place of these warriorlike gods who had been my heroes. I began to want to be less of a war hero and more of what those men were. They gave me courage, they gave me hope.

Playboy: Seeing adult men expressing sensitivity and vulnerability?

Keitel: Yes, yes. That's what I mean: the courage to express their feelings, their emotions, their thoughts. That was stunning. Frightening. It took more courage than I ever imagined, much more courage than picking up a gun.

Playboy: And then in the mid-Sixties you answered an ad for a student film and met a young director named Martin Scorsese.

Keitel: I was still a court stenographer, but I used to follow the trade papers in New York--Show Business and Backstage--looking for auditions. And I went down to NYU and auditioned for Marty. It took three auditions before I got the part in Who's That Knocking at My Door? We did it on weekends the entire winter because nobody got paid, no one had money.

Playboy: Did you sense a kinship with Scorsese?

Keitel: Right away. I was asking myself the same questions he was: What is courage? What is fear?

Playboy: What were your fears?

Keitel: The ultimate fear is of being adrift, abandoned, and not being able to cope with it. One's ability to cope with these darker elements will determine the heights one will reach. Perhaps that's why my answers are not so clear or so straight down the line--because the line is not straight.

Playboy: Five years after that first film, Scorsese directed you and Robert De Niro in Mean Streets. He said the movie was his attempt at making a story of a modern saint in his own society, which happened to be full of gangsters. Is that how you saw it?

Keitel: No. I understand his perspective and it makes sense. Marry understood that sainthood isn't like the movies. He was out to make a real story about a real saint, one who had fears, obstacles, doubts, who knew pain.

Playboy: And he wrote that character, Charlie, for you as his alter ego?

Keitel: That's what he says.

Playboy: Didn't De Niro want that part, instead of playing Johnny Boy?

Keitel: Yeah. So I said, ''Fine, I'd like to play Johnny Boy.'' Marty wouldn't let us switch.

Playboy: Do you remember what you thought the first time you met De Niro?

Keitel: We looked at each other and we just laughed. That was it, we just kept laughing. Looking back, I see that we recognized each other. I knew he was a great actor.

Playboy: After that film both Scorsese and De Niro went on to become stars, but you didn't. Ever reflect on that?

Keitel: It took me a long while to get to know myself, to understand who I was, a process I'm still engaged in. I had doubts, which always take the same form: ''I can't do it. I don't know how to do it.'' I couldn't get the inside outside, and it used to kill me. I felt I was not living to my capacity as a human being. Forget the actor. That's why I became an actor, to try to scribble those images on the cave wall, to express who I am. We all have an inherent need to do that.

Playboy: Yet after Mean Streets----

Keitel: I didn't work after that for a long time. Marty gave me my next job, in Alice Doesn't Live. Here Anymore.

Playboy: Is it true you were scared of the guy you played in that film?

Keitel: I remember a sense of repugnance about what I saw. He was a repugnant character.

Playboy: Is it hard to play a distasteful character?

Keitel: No, but you have to search to find him in yourself. I was in denial of that.

Playboy: Critic Pauline Kael said your character was ''macho sleaze incarnate. When he turns violent, it says as much as any scene on film about the abject terror that women can have of men.''

Keitel: Well, my girlfriend certainly responded that way at the time. She wouldn't talk to me. Truthfully.

Playboy: Did you consider that to be a compliment?

Keitel: No, not at all. I didn't understand it. But she understood it in the sense that Kael spoke of.

Playboy: What do you think of Robert Altman, who directed you in Buffalo Bill and the Indians?

Keitel: Bob Altman is one of the great human beings on this planet, one of the true mavericks. A lot of people like to claim that title, but he is a maverick and I can't think of anyone else like him.

Playboy: You probably can't say the same about Francis Coppola, who hired you for and then fired you from Apocalypse Now.

Keitel: Obviously, your favorite from your smirk.

Playboy: And just as obviously not one of yours.

Keitel: That's one of those areas I don't know if I'm willing to get into because it was really a matter of a director and an actor not getting along.

Playboy: What caused the problems?

Keitel: That's between Francis and me. I insisted on auditioning for the part, by the way. It was awkward, but I wanted Francis to know what he was getting. It was a matter of a young actor who was an ex-Marine out of Brooklyn meeting up with a talented director who was out of UCLA and some fraternity. I don't think we communicated well. We clashed. Scorsese was a young man from the streets of lower Manhattan. Much different. It's cultural.

Playboy: How long did you work on the film before he replaced you with Martin Sheen?

Keitel: I did about two weeks of shooting in the Philippines. Had I known then what I know now, I would have kept my mouth shut longer and had them shoot so much they couldn't fire me.

Playboy: What exactly went down between you?

Keitel: I couldn't sell myself out to anybody. Not for money or for the opportunity to be successful. I was trembling, but I knew I had done the right thing when I stood my ground.

Playboy: What ground were you standing on?

Keitel: I couldn't sign the contract that would hold me to him for seven years.

Playboy: And you didn't sign it?

Keitel: Well, I'm not in the movie, am I? It was a hell of a moment for me, I'll tell you that. One doesn't give up Apocalypse Now so easily, believe me. It was hard. But my freedom was worth more than becoming an international name.

Playboy: No wonder you once said that you pay a price for not being in successful movies.

Keitel: [Laughs] I don't have to expound on that, do I? The price you pay is less work. You get fewer offers.

Playboy: Did it stigmatize you to have been fired by Coppola?

Keitel: It didn't help. Also, I wasn't spoken about very nicely in Hollywood. You know the way it goes. But that was a long time ago, and if we were both still bitter about it, we'd be two sorrowful, aging men. I'm not sorrowful, and neither is he.

Playboy: What do you think of Apocalypse Now?

Keitel: It's very good. There are some great scenes in it.

Playboy: There were also some great scenes in Scorsese's Last Temptation of Christ, where you played the role of Judas. But the movie seemed to have been doomed to controversy.

Keitel: Yes. That was a project I was very proud to be a part of. I can't tell you how many conversations and arguments I've had around the world regarding that film. I was aware of being involved in a phenomenal piece of work. I thought we were going to change the world. And we did in some ways.

Playboy: In what ways?

Keitel: In the way religious people viewed the relationship between Judas and Jesus. There's more to the story of what made him betray Jesus than what I (continued on page 149) Harvey Keitel (continued from page 68) had read. People have been steered down a narrow, bigoted road. It was important to make the film to help people bridge the gap between Christianity and Judaism, and perhaps to overcome their prejudices that exist because they've been fed the line that Judas betrayed Jesus. Well, [Author Nikos] Kazantzakis had a different point of view about what might have happened. He believed Judas was a patriot, that he believed in Jesus' work and that he was serving a cause they were both supporting and that they both would give their lives for. The film was also important for showing Jesus as the great rabbi he was and for the great awareness he had of being one of the sons of God. We and women being the other sons and daughters of God.

Playboy: In the Eighties you worked abroad a lot, including appearing on an Italian TV show. What got you to do that?

Keitel: I needed money, I was broke. I wasn't able to get work in the States. It was the second time in my life that I had been broke.

Playboy: When was the first time?

Keitel: When I did Saturn 3. But I'm not going to sit here and cry about a movie I didn't really want to do. I did it and made $90,000. I'm not ashamed of it.

Playboy: What would you have done if those parts hadn't come along?

Keitel: Oh God, I'm glad I didn't have that problem.

Playboy: Did you ever think you might have to give up acting and get a day job?

Keitel: For years and years.

Playboy: What would you have done?

Keitel: I don't know. Bite your tongue.

Playboy: How difficult has it been to be alone?

Keitel: You're asking me a loaded question because you know damn well that out of despair comes relationships and adventures that are chaos and hellish, which I'm not going to talk about here. It's important how you choose to reveal yourself. I do it in my work and in my close relationships. I don't know that I'm going to do it here completely. I'm conscious of this being in print.

Playboy: Have you ever thought about writing your memoirs?

Keitel: I've started writing lately. In the past I had this psychological thing of not having the patience to sit with myself. Now I'm gaining the ability to do that. I began to write a journal while I was making The Gaze of Odysseus. First I copied long passages from books that I was reading. From there I began to record dreams. Now what I want to do is write down ideas for scenes and other things that strike me.

Playboy: Have you considered directing?

Keitel: I'd like to one day, before I cross the great divide. I still have to work as an actor to make a living. Later on I hope to develop an idea and direct. I have the opening to my movie and the ending.

Playboy: Do you prefer small, independent films to big-budget movies on which you can make millions?

Keitel: No. [Laughs] Harvey would like to make millions.

Playboy: Whose work do you keep in mind as you develop your idea?

Keitel: John Cassavetes influenced us all. He was one of the greatest, one of those mystagogues along my path. Young filmmakers should see his work, it's important. After Mean Streets Marty Scorsese once brought me to his house. I remember sitting in a chair while he was describing scenes from Minnie and Moskowitz and he was laughing hysterically. My cheeks were hurting me because I was so nervous, I was trying to smile because he was laughing so much. I could not laugh for the life of me.

Playboy: You must have seen a lot of destruction in Bosnia, where The Gaze of Odysseus was filmed.

Keitel: I did. I walked the streets of Vukovar and Mostar and then went to Sarajevo with Vanessa Redgrave on behalf of Unicef. A Muslim officer in Mostar warned us that there were mines in the buildings and to keep out of them. We saw tanks on the way to Vukovar, where the once beautiful city has been destroyed. Our Serbian crew came with us, and by the looks on their faces I understood the horror of what had happened there. What can you say about a town that's been destroyed by bombs and hand grenades and house-to-house fighting? That stays with you for the rest of your life. It certainly is a great device for cleaning the bullshit out of your mind. It instills a sense of despair about humanity. People in power have a greater responsibility to educate themselves in a spiritual way. Now, years after Vietnam, Robert McNamara writes a book that says we were stupid, that we made a mistake and didn't understand the Vietnamese culture. Don't you want to hit him in the head with that book? Smash him in the face with it? People are dying in the Balkans because people in power do not educate themselves in a philosophical, spiritual, religious, loving way.

Playboy: Do you believe in destiny and fate?

Keitel: Every time I hear that I get an image of that little napalmed girl running down the road in Vietnam, or the children who died in the Oklahoma City bombing. Or I see the face of that lady who drowned her two children in South Carolina. I have a difficult time believing in destiny and fate.

Playboy: How many films are you working on?

Keitel: There are a number of projects I'm trying to get developed, and I'm in two films. One, From Dusk Till Dawn, is written by Quentin Tarantino. The other, Head Above Water, is a black comedy directed by Jim Wilson.

Playboy: Because you're closely associated with independent films, do you find yourself doling out advice to various young filmmakers?

Keitel: It might sound corny, but if there's anything I'd like to get through to people who ask my advice, it's this: Don't die. Keep struggling. If you don't die but descend into it, you will live with more excitement than you can imagine. How do you tell someone, ''Go to what you don't know''? You can't. I stumbled upon it. There's a beautiful image in the Book of Runes of some god tumbling through space from one word to another, tumbling through the unknown. If you're willing to tumble, you'll come upon a word that will lead you to the next word.

Playboy: But with the high cost of making a film, how do you keep young hopefuls from getting discouraged?

Keitel: I tell them to just do it. There's no need to wait. You have the technology at your fingertips now. Beg, borrow and steal the money. If you have the will, you'll find a way to create the piece. It takes a need to do it. Scorsese borrowed money from his parents, friends and relatives to finish Who's That Knocking? El Mariachi was done for $10,000 or $15,000. It's possible. Don't wait for Hollywood or make excuses that you need a big budget. You don't. Just remember: Accomplishment begins in your own room in the nighttime.

Playboy: Have you ever spent nights contemplating offers to do commercials?

Keitel: I've been asked to do commercials. I've never felt right about them. I would do something if I felt it was beneficial to people's well-being.

Playboy: Like appearing nude on a billboard, as Kim Basinger did to protest the killing of animals for their fur?

Keitel: That's certainly a worthwhile cause. Kim and her husband have done a lot in terms of environmental causes. I have nothing but admiration for them.

Playboy: If you did such an ad, would that be Harvey Keitel naked, or some character in your mind?

Keitel: Listen, I don't want you to have the impression I'm attempting to be abstract, but when I think about an animal being slaughtered for its fur, the animal and I are one. I don't think about Harvey Keitel being nude. I think about an animal being skinned and some person wearing its fur.

Playboy: We're just kidding. Your point is clear. Would you say that you're content with where you are now?

Keitel: I get scared of the word content. Stella Adler, responding to an actor who said. ''I'm content with what I did,'' once said. ''Darling, only cows are content.''

A psychiatrist once said to me, ''You are very intense.'' I got upset. I was insulted. It took me a long time to learn that my intense feelings are nothing to be ashamed of.