As you get older and ease your way into being a character actor you have to be comfortable with where you are in life and career, and I'm very comfortable with what I'm doing - working on projects I'm proud of.

I don't believe in happy endings but I believe in happy journeys.

The best lesson my mom taught me was how to be scrappy.

Hollywood still makes things. We still export a couple billion dollars' worth of product overseas. Original, new product. Some people might not agree that it's original or new, but basically it is.

I certainly direct with confidence even if I'm not confident. I learned early on as an actor that confidence can be faked, and it's not always a terrible thing to do. A lot of times if people feel you're confident, then they're confident.

What you learn after you are 40 is that it is just about plugging up holes in the boat. You just hope you have enough corks to plug enough of the holes.

It is a question in that case of breaking up one piece of art, and whether that piece of art can be as best as possible put back together. So it's an argument to say, maybe that's one of those instances, like the bust of Nefertiti, I think that should be given back [Egyptian piece currently in Neues Museum in Berlin]. It's one of those pieces you look at and think that would probably be the right thing to do.