I'm known as a kind of dramatic, serious, almost humorless actor and the fact is, I'm a funny guy, and I spend most of my life trying to find a lighter side of things, and on stage was given plenty of opportunity to do that.

I learned, especially from my mother, to respect the profession and take it seriously, but not take yourself too seriously.

I only made two studio movies, that was a long time ago and obviously I removed myself. I think some of that is geographical. I live in New York and I want to work there, it's as simple as that.

I think people tend to live, whether they like it or not, influenced by what's next door to them.

Directing is: you're overwhelmed the whole time. Your mind never stops. If you care about it. You wake up in the morning and you begin thinking about it and then you go to sleep at night and you're still thinking about it.

In one way they make the movie something you can handle because it's character driven and it's slightly off center. That's what's attractive, but it also has the potential of being cutesy and sappy. I am so uninterested in that.

I know it's good when I see a smaller film get recognized because it means more publicity for them. Any way to get the word out, I'm just learning about this. The end of this distribution sentence is the scariest part, which is when you start producing and directing. Now the movies are a little more like your children. You now spent years of your life and then it just dumps in one day and you think what happened? It doesn't always happen.