I realized early on that success was tied to not giving up.

I think that the best movies are made, not from a point of view that depends on your personal history, whether it's the color of your skin or the politics that you had or the place that you come from, but from a point of view of an understanding of human nature, an understanding of history, and an understanding of what motivates people.

Hokey religions and ancient weapons are no match for a good blaster at your side, kid.

When we were making it [Star Wars], none of the effects were in. So the first time, I thought it was, you know, that - I mean, we were surrounded by English crew members that could hardly keep themselves together. They were, "Here comes the guy in the dog suit." They made fun of us, which was OK. But the first time I was sitting in a theater, and I saw all the effects in, and the big ship flew over the audience, and the sound rumbled, I pretty much thought we were close to home.

What I look for is identifying what the utility of a character is to the telling of the story overall. If I can identify that from reading the script, then I've got a clear idea of whether or not I think the character is worth playing.

What I found was an emotional consistency with him. The words, the scenes, the situations - I wasn't mimicking what I thought Branch Rickey's emotional reality would have been.

That [film What's My Line] was very useful to me because it had Branch Rickey in a social situation. Every other bit of film [42] that I had was him making a speech.