So how is success different now from your ’80s The Big Easy heyday?
Back then my head wasn’t screwed on straight, and I wasn’t ready for it. But when you get success, don’t appreciate it, lose it, and get humbled, when it comes back again, that’s very sweet.

Bumping quickly back to your admitted cokehead days, did it seem at all hypocritical to be starring in Postcards From the Edge, a full-on antidrug film?
I was playing a character who was on drugs, so, no. In fact, I felt like, “Well, that gives me free rein!” [laughs]

So, unlike Meryl Streep in the first scene of that movie, you could get away with performing high?
Was she on blow for that? I never knew that.

No, Dennis! Her character was.
Oh. [laughs] Well, a couple of times I had people come have a talk with me, but I was operating, for the most part, on two hours of sleep a night, and I realized, “I can’t do this and last very long.” So I cleaned up [in the early ’90s] and then the jobs stopped coming. You clean up your life and think you’re supposed to be rewarded for it, but things actually get worse. On the other hand, if I hadn’t sobered up, I probably wouldn’t be alive today.

Nevertheless, you were bound and determined to get back on top.
Well, not back on top, ’cause I was never really on top. [laughs] That was always the big story about me in the ’80s: “When is he gonna get the role that’ll make him the superstar?” But all I ever wanted to do was work at a certain level, [so] that got really tiresome.

As did, I’m sure, being hounded as a “celebrity couple” during your years with Meg Ryan.
Being a celebrity couple is not so easy—it’s double the publicity, and it’s hard to have a private life. . . . I have to tell you that I’m happier with my life now than ever: I have a great son and a great career. I’m not only here, but here stronger than I’ve ever been—I have absolutely no regrets about the ups and downs of my career.

So those famously killer abs and grin are still ready for their close-ups?
I come from a time back when there was the Hunk of the Month—and you never wanted to be that—but there came a point where everybody just wanted me to smile and show my abs. I was like, “I didn’t know this was part of the job.” Now, however, I’m quite willing to smile and show my abs because I’m gonna be fifty in April and [laughs] I still got ’em!