It doesn't interest me to be Harrison Ford. It interests me to be Mike Pomeroy and Indiana Jones and Jack Ryan. I don't want to be in the Harrison Ford business. I take what I do seriously, but I don't take myself seriously.

All my friends were going off to be professionals, and I said I wanted to be an actor.

I believe that the racial injustice which existed such a short time ago probably would have persisted longer if the color barrier had not been broken in baseball.

You have to remember that baseball really was the American pastime in the Forties, not football, basketball or any other sport.

I saw what luck and success I had as an opportunity to twist it up and do something different, so I've always sought out different genres and different kinds of characters.

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.

All I would tell people is to hold onto what was individual about themselves, not to allow their ambition for success to cause them to try to imitate the success of others. You've got to find it on your own terms.