Though I acted in hundreds of productions, appeared at the Guthrie Theatre and on Broadway in Amadeus, I discovered in my thirties that I didn't really like stage acting. The presence of the audience, the eight shows a week and the possibility of a long run were all unnatural to me.

I have a secret aspiration to be considered for a part where it doesn't matter what you look like to play it.

We must agree to live in this world, with all that is unfair about it, without knowing why, if we wish to have a God in our lives.

I haven't appeared on stage in quite a long time and I don't have any immediate plans to do so, but I'm always interested in going back.

I don't really know of the Jewish tradition of comedy, only the Jewish tradition of not keeping your mouth shut. Complaining about all that is hard, unfair or ridiculous in life-having strong feelings, and not being able to suppress them. That, to me, is Jewish.

I am tolerably ignorant about Judaism, and much of what I do know about it seems hard to swallow, because it is so grounded in legalism, and adherence to rituals.

There are some directors who don't like the set much. They like post-production, where you have all the ingredients in the can - you've got all the footage, all the music, the various effects - and then you have to do the alchemy necessary to make it all good, a long and very key process of putting everything together and making it into the cogent thing that you want.