Poverty makes it very difficult in an already competitive world for kids to get on a straight track where they can actually love learning.

We who are in the arts are at the risk of being in a popularity contest rather than a profession. If that fact causes you despair . . . pick another profession. Your desire to communicate must be bigger than your relationship with the chaotic and unfair realities . . . We have to create our own standards of discipline.

People realize that we're very good at sending people to war, but we're not good at taking care of them. And people are coming back from war now; years ago, they would have been killed, now they're wounded; and they're coming back alive and with post-traumatic stress. So, I think Americans are sensible enough to know we've got to figure out a way to take care of them.

I have never been in a violent movie or television show.

Racism has been for everyone like a horrible, tragic car crash, and we've all been heavily sedated from it. If we don't come into consciousness of this tragedy, there's going to be a violent awakening we don't want. The question is, can we wake up?

I see myself as not a typical theater person, but a person who uses the theater as a place to meet people and explore ideas.

I think we need leadership that helps us remember that part of what we are about is caring about more than the person right next to us, but the folks across the way.