When you perform with a live audience, the audience comes back to you, so that you and the audience are giving to each other, in a sense. It's an extraordinary thing. It's wild turf up there.

I don't talk politics and I don't talk philosophy or anything like that, but if you look at my work, you might get an expression of me as a person.

An actor basically likes to be asked to do something, no matter what position he's in. It feels more natural. Sitting and waiting is more gratifying.

It surprised me, the feeling I got when I won the Oscar for 'Scent of a Woman.' It was a new feeling. I'd never felt it. I don't see my Oscar much now. But when I first got it, there was a feeling for weeks afterward that I guess is akin to winning a gold medal in the Olympics.

In America most everybody who's Italian is half Italian. Except me. I'm all Italian. I'm mostly Sicilian, and I have a little bit of Neapolitan in me. You get your full dose with me.

One of the things that made me want to be an actor more than ever was seeing a Chekhov play, "The Sea Gull," when was 14 in the Bronx.

I'm naturally shy but I've done this [movie Salomaybe] so much and you get better at it than you would think.