The last few years I've been saying I was ready to quit. It wasn't that interesting to me. Now that I'm directing, it's all new again.

I try not to think about that [getting Oscar] ahead of time. You just try to do the best work you can, and then you get the movie out there, and we've been hearing good things. But you never know, you don't want to get too high, and you don't want to get too low.

Black or white good parts are hard to come by. A good actor with a good opportunity has a shot; without the opportunity it doesn't matter how good you are.

It could be that it's not that different. Circumstances, no matter what the color is, could be similar.

You don't pick black actors or black directors because they are black. You pick them because they are good. If you lend somebody 50 million dollars you want you're money back. You don't care if they are oppressed. You just want you're money back.

That's where you can find things and modulate your performance and give the other actors something fresh to respond to. We've probably all worked with actors who when it's suddenly your close up, they get sleepy. I don't like that. It's selfish acting, and I won't tolerate it.

Meryl and Katharine Hepburn are probably the two greatest actresses of this and the last century.