I've always thought that, in a sense, the more specific and sometimes even the smaller the world of a movie is, the more universal it is.

In my career, I've had kind of a strange trajectory as an actor. I started out doing movies and theater and stuff, but then I had a terrible problem with stage fright as an actor on stage, and I quit stage acting for a long, long time.

I'd always admired Diane Keaton, but I'd never met her.

I always think of the character as being me. But me wearing a 'coat', which may be a different way of speaking, moving or regarding other people. To me, acting is pretending, just like kids playing, only you pretend as if it were really, really real.

It probably goes without saying that I enjoy the potato pancakes, delicious hams and so forth that maddeningly turn up at this time of year.

Well, because I have twin seven-year-old boys, I enjoy the gift giving stuff a great deal. We do both Hanukkah and Christmas, so it is a costly, though extremely pleasing proposition.

It's funny, but three of my early films were with Liam Neeson, before Liam Neeson was a big star.