Martin Sheen on getting the lead role in Badlands (1973): "It was the first time in my life that I realized I had an opportunity to play an ‘important’ part in a film — I knew [Malick] was a genius. And then, a few days later, he called me and said he’d like me to do it, and, ‘Could we talk to your agent?’ And I said, ‘Oh, Terry, you know, I’ve never done this before,’ I said, ‘but that’s the best script I’ve ever read, and now it’s the best part I’ve ever been offered,’ I said, ‘but I can’t do it.’ ‘Oh, why not?’ I said, ‘Well, I’m too old. Terry, I’m going to be 32 this summer.’ This is in 1972. And I said, ‘I’m too old. The character you’ve written is 19. He’s very much 19.’ ‘I know that,’ he said, ‘but, you know, I’ve been thinking: if you would do it, I’d make the character a bit older. Would you consider it?’ I said, ‘Of course!’ I said, ‘I’ll do it.’ He said, ‘Okay, well, I’ll talk to you in a few days’… I had to leave very early in the morning to get to Paramount [where Sheen was shooting a TV show], and I remember driving along the Pacific Coast Highway, and the sun was just coming up. And I was listening to Dylan, and it was a recording — he was playing ‘Desolation Row’… and it hit me that I was going to do this part in that movie with this guy, and I began to weep with joy and exultation. I can’t explain it. I’ve never had a moment like that in my life. And I had to pull off the side of the road by the ocean… The sun’s coming up, and Dylan is playing, and I’m weeping because I got the part of my life and I knew it." — Martin Sheen interviewed by Scott Feinberg for The Hollywood Reporter in 2012