Working in film, if you work with great directors, you learn that after every take you must let go. Sitting with my wife at the Academy Awards, we both let the moment just go.

But filming is good for you, because the crew isn't allowed to laugh. You can't get addicted to getting the laugh.

You want to know what I want? I'll tell you what I want. I want back what Bobby Fischer took with him when he disappeared.

All the great writers root their characters in true human behaviour.

The camera does not like acting. The camera is only interested in filming behaviour. So you damn well learn your lines until you know them inside out, while standing on your head!

I think that various styles and methods and approaches are an invention of people who don't understand the process of acting and who try very hard to label things.

I don't want to be like the actor who rehearses everything in the bathroom, then comes to the set and carries on completely uninterrupted while the other actors tiptoe away. I'm so dependent on reacting to the other actors on the set, and to the director. I'm very responsive. I react. And I treasure the energy that reaction gives. I feed off that and work off that. I don't like to be too prepared, no. However we define too prepared, if I feel it's getting that way, then I'll back off. My line-learning is very special. I like to learn the dialogue of the whole film before I arrive.