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Born
December 17, 1953 · Hornell, New York, USA

Birth name
William James Pullman

Spouse
Tamara Pullman(January 3, 1987 – present) (3 children)

QUOTES:

[on watching Independence Day (1996) with President Bill Clinton] Oh, great. This is going to be like shooting baskets with Magic Johnson watching.

[1996, on Lost Highway (1997)] I was brought up in a very small town in upstate New York. We lived on Main Street, and my dad was a doctor. And this idyllic setting held some very dark corners. Working with David Lynch, getting to know his psyche, and getting inside the character in Lost Highway felt so connected up to my past. Benign on the exterior, seething on the interior. My dad was also the town coroner, so we saw all these dead bodies…When I was a teenager my father would bring us along. I remember that when my mother had colon cancer, my father took us down to the basement of the hospital and pulled out a tumor in a jar to show us. And he’s holding it up, he’s kinda laughing, like a scientist. He said, ‘See, it’s kinda like congealed hamburger.’ I mean, that’s like David Lynch, that combination of strange, funny, macabre, all in one. So working with Lynch felt very much like going home.

Liebestraum (1991) was a great experience, a great time, and I have such fond memories about it…It was wild working with Mike Figgis, because he’s very much in possession of himself. Some would say a narcissist, but I think there’s a power in that. I have to admit that I was just dazzled by his absorption with his own instincts and his own ability to pursue things…

It’s very curious when you’re an actor and suddenly you’re in the right role, with the right match. Truthfully, I almost avoided While You Were Sleeping (1995), because I find those romantic comedies kind of precious, and they’re full of lines that leave you feeling a little bewildered when you say them. It’s all about first looks and little giggles, and part of me is always thinking, ‘Isn’t there anything else we could be doing with our time right now? Something a little more important?’ But when I was doing it, I really enjoyed it. It was like the air was charged between me and Sandy. From the minute I met her, we just clicked. We were totally in tune with each other. Lots of the movie was about us just talking and talking, and I’ll tell you the truth, most actors don’t listen very well, they don’t give it 100 percent. But Sandy and I, we just lived in that rarefied air of the movie, and it worked really, really well.