The only tool we have as artists is selectivity. If you're a painter, you select the color, the lines, how severe they should be. As an actor you develop how angry you should be. You select how angry you should be. You listen to the other actor and then you react. In film, sometimes the other actor isn't even there. You have to play the scene. What I do is I call on my experience on the stage. I play the scene and I hope that I reach a certain level of integrity because that's what I learned on the stage.

I was at the pinnacle of my career one day and the next day I was put out to pasture. I felt like a race horse with a broken leg.

Fred Silverman, the head of ABC, he offered me a lot of comedy series but I told him I'd already been the best comedy series around, "The Odd Couple," and so when he saw that I did Quincy he called my agent and said, Jack turns me down? All my good series and he ends up playing an undertaker." And this was the HEAD of ABC series.

I love the theater. I love the rehearsals. That's where you build a performance. That's your foundation. If you're gonna build a house, you start with the foundation. That makes the house strong. That's the way I build a character, from the foundation out.

Some days when I start to talk, my voice isnt strong. But then it warms up.

Time is very important to art and if you don't have the time to select, art goes out the window.

Walter Matthau made all the big money and he was wonderful as Oscar Madison on the stage. You couldn't beat him. I know because I replaced him on Broadway. He was just delightful.