In a "making of" for some movie he was in with Wes Bentley during that guy's downturn, Roberts said he loves making these kinds of movies because he really believes in supporting people trying to make something -- anything -- without a lot of money. Presumably he knows his name still carries marquee value at this level of filmmaking, and the filmmakers are grateful to have actors like him on board. He's comfortable that his leading man days are long behind him, just as he knows he has the cache to still pull the occasional bit role in a major studio film, so he's quite content to keep plying his trade with people who just want to make movies, regardless of the quality of the finished product. There are a LOT of actors in those trenches with him, many of whom enjoyed former status in Hollywood once upon a time: Swain, Michael Pare, Michael Madsen, Daniel Baldwin, James Caan, Paul Sorvino, Martin Landau, Peter Coyote, and tons more. Nearly all of them are better actors than the films they're in, and they elevate those films -- even the crappiest ones -- with their skills, and in the end these types of pictures hardly threaten careers that have already been in the low-budget trenches for years anyway.
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