For me, in movies, it's always a mixed bag. I've never made a movie where I thought, "You were really good in that movie; you were good all the time." No. It's always, "You didn't get it, you didn't do it in that scene, but the other scene is pretty good." So I just hope that in balance there's more good scenes than not.

I remember a few years ago I was sitting at home with my wife watching the Oscars. I was sitting on the couch and suddenly heard my voice. It's thrilling. It's interesting that a lot of guys do me. I have a friend who does me on his answering machine so when I call him I talk to myself. I don't really know what that comes from. It doesn't seem to me that I speak in a strange way. My wife says Kevin's (Spacey) the best.

When I was a teenager and all these shows were on I was in that business, so I knew a lot of people in the theaters and I saw many of the great shows many times. I would go in and stand in the back - they would let me in, they knew me. I saw Fiddler on the Roof, A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum, Gypsy, and Funny Girl many times just standing in the back.

I think that if I had grown up and had been in show business and the movies twenty five, thirty years earlier, I think I would have made a lot more musical movies.

I think the fact that I grew up in show business had a real effect on my personality. If you were born in New York during the golden age of television, and you grew up on Broadway, that marks you.

Somebody said to me that I speak English almost like somebody for whom English is not their first language.

My background is in musical comedy.