I do think that's so much a part of what being a director is - in working with actors - to really try and be sensitive to what each actor needs to get to where he wants to be.

A scientist is an unlikely character to put at the center of a movie.

It's an odd thing to go to New York to shoot a movie that is set in Indiana.

I really think the biopic thing so rarely works, because peoples lives dont have a dramatic shape that can be satisfying.

I had a couple of movies that I was passionately involved with that I could never get made. 'Richard Pryor,' I wrote for - gosh - over a year. That was close to getting made for two-and-a-half years after that. We're still pushing it, you know. It is weird. Suddenly you wake up and it's like, 'God, five years have gone by.

In Hollywood through the 50s, there were black, English, and Middle European housekeepers and maids.

But you really - I always think that a director has got to adapt to whatever the needs of the actor are. You know, so if you take someone like Eddie Murphy, who is not a big fan of rehearsal. You know he comes out of stand-up. He comes - it's all about capturing the moment - in the moment, you know.