Bruce Dern has worked with practically every iconic actor and director in the last fifty years, and he’s not afraid to say what he thinks about all of them. His career has run the gamut from B movies to Z movies to becoming an Oscar nominee, and he’s created some of the most indelible performances in modern cinema. Now, in this uniquely funny memoir, he looks back over his amazing career, telling one memorable story after another and giving key insights into how placing artistic challenge over career development has kept one of Hollywood’s greatest actors from also being one of its most rich and famous.

People love reading about red carpet regulars, and Dern doesn’t disappoint. He writes candidly and unforgettably about working with Alfred Hitchcock, John Frankenheimer, Claude Chabrol, Jack Nicholson, Paul Newman, Bob Dylan, Matt Damon, Charlize Theron, Jane Fonda, John Wayne, and many more. Readers will discover why he turned down potentially career-making roles in The Godfather, Marathon Man, and Gandhi; why his prestigious family disowned him over a typo in the New York Times; and why, after he was already famous, he agreed to star in The Incredible Two-Headed Transplant, the second best two-headed transplant movie of 1971.

As Dern’s career moves full steam ahead in the HBO series Big Love and Astronaut Farmer (his forthcoming film with Bruce Willis and Billy Bob Thornton), Things I’ve Said, but Probably Shouldn’t Have is the book not just Dern fans and Hollywood enthusiasts will be talking about this season.