I've never met a genius. A genius to me is someone who does well at something he hates. Anybody can do well at something he loves - it's just a question of finding the subject.

As you get older, you change certain things.

You have to feel confident. If you don't, then you're going to be hesitant and defensive, and there'll be a lot of things working against you.

I like to direct the same way that I like to be directed.

That's one of the actor's secrets: With everything you do, learn something new about yourself.

Respect your efforts, respect yourself. Self-respect leads to self-discipline. When you have both firmly under your belt, that's real power.

I just kind of had my own impressions growing up with Hoover as a heroic figure in the 40s - actually the 30s, 40s, and 50s and beyond - but this was all prior to the information age so we didn't know about Hoover except what was usually in the papers, and this was fun, because this was a chance to go into it [ during filming 'J. Edgar Hoover' ]