At some level, you've got to have the ability to - especially in film and in front of the camera, you got to have the ability to drop into character and close off the entire crew and the camera and everything else.

You can have good writing, but a great actor will make it feel and sound like great writing. You can have great writing, and mediocre actors will make it feel mediocre. Without the actors, you have nothing.

I don't really have a lot of fun playing just straight good guys. It's not my thing. It's like Tom Hanks territory.

I wasn't the best student. I wasn't stupid, but I wasn't paying a lot of attention.

Dustin Hoffman said this one time, that if he hadn't made it as a film star, he would still be happy as a character actor because he was a character actor because of his face from day one, so he would always work in the theater.

There's a method aspect to Campbell Scott character and he really wants to get into his character and he wants to cast to go on a fast so that by the time the play opens nobody's eaten in three days because he wants the audience to feel the pain from the stage.

If a character dies, you get to do a big, juicy death scene. But the flip side is you're out of the sequel, which is where the real money is.