I'm constantly striving to break through to something new. You try to maintain a neutral approach to your work, and not be too hard on yourself.

Learning (Shakespeare's plays) ...in school was a bit of a bore.

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.

I understand the directors much more. I was always rebelling against them when I was a youngster, I didn't want to be told what to do. I had no identification.

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.

Great directors can understand the staging in such a way that can make a scene come alive. Others have a certain way of pacing the scene.

Responsibilities are relative. My responsibility is to a character in a script, to a part I'm playing.