You learn a great deal that you can feed into your craft which gives you the experience that you actually need later on, when you start to get the really great roles. You've played that part to a certain degree in that picture, and you played that one in that, and so on. You add it all up, and you have that experience.

The older I get, the more I realize how much I have missed because I was so busy entertaining that audience and so busy pursuing a career.

I can't say that I deserve longlife; I don't. I've just been around long enough. They say, "My God, she's still here."

I have never directed. But I think I could. I have thought about it. I'm a bit long in the tooth to start.

I had no idea that such a thing could happen. It never occurred to me.My son told me. He called me and said, "Darling, I just wanted you to know that you have been chosen to receive an honorary Academy Award." I was in the back of this car, and I said, "Oh," and burst into tears, of course, because it was so unexpected and quite wonderful. I thought it's been worth hanging around all these years.

I've worked with the greatest actors, and they're all gone. This is what's so desperate to me.

Im in a very enviable position, being able to work like this 45 years later. Its always beginning! I never have a sense of finishing up, just new things beginning. When I die, theyre going to carry me off a stage.