I think most people that are looked upon as doing something daring don't necessarily think of it that way-they do what they have to do.

I've always wanted to work with Paul Newman. I had a couple opportunities in the past, and I didn't take advantage of it, so it was really fun to be working with him

You have to be willing to expose yourself, at least to yourself, to get to some kind of truth about a character.

You get three hours' sleep and then you start all over again. Relentless. Pre-production was almost harder than filming. I was all over the city every day. It was really exhausting.

When I decided to direct, never having done that before, is something I'm very proud of

I had some really dear friends who died from AIDS-one in particular. His family wasn't around and he didn't have many friends. I spent a lot of time with him in his later days.

It's hard to see a film that's been made from a book that you really loved because it's such a different experience