I don't tire of playing the bad boys. John Wayne was a cowboy – I'm just the badass that bashes everybody up. It's all right when you think I've been in more than 70 films. I've played the assassin, the debt collector, the thug… It seems like every time I start to grow my hair I get another part.
My mum calls my temper Devilman. They say you calm down with age, but I don't know. It never goes away. The last time [I had a fight], two years ago, I ended up with 68 stitches in my head. I don't want to go there again.
The less I drink, the more my anger fades. I think that's how it started in the first place. My parents got divorced when I was young, and alcohol seemed to trigger everything off. The problem's not the bottle – it's the case. I'm the case or nothing, last man standing. I haven't had a drink for six months.
Film is like football – you join a team, get close to one or two people, then never hear from them again. I don't get emotionally involved. Do one, move on.
I hold my arms open to Brits in LA. I was lucky – Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels gave me a head start. But it's a lonely place. On a Saturday night we take in all the waifs and strays. We have the outdoor parties; Tarantino [who lives next door ] has them indoors in his cinema.
I feel the same about protecting the countryside as I do about gay marriage – leave it to the gays, the people who are involved. I can't stand these people who live in cities putting their nose in the issue. Just deal with the city and let us do what we're doing.
The problem with lads is that they change. I thought the guys I played football with, drank with, fought with, were going to be there always. But people fall in love. They get married, have kids, and I remember feeling bitter about that. It took me a long time to grow up.
There's no bigger bullshit than choosing a movie because of a fantastic script. I hate the way people go on about it, because that film is going to be edited and it can still be shit.
Football became my life at five or six. The earliest memory I have is of playing in my first boots – a pair of black and white Alan Balls. It was 1970, four years after the World Cup, and I scored three goals at school.
It took me 40 years to see a psychologist. I often wonder how my life might have been different if it had been four years, or four months.
I buy hats like women buy shoes. I have well over 150. In fact, I went out the other day to buy my assistant a present and bought another two.
It's unbelievable to think of the success of Lock, Stock when you consider Jason Flemyng was the only actor in it.
Vinnie Jones's autobiography, It's Been Emotional (£18.99), is published by Simon & Schuster. To order a copy for £15.19, with free UK p&p, go to theguardian.com/bookshop or call 0330 333 6846