Every film you work on is different, and that's part of what it's like for anybody who works on a film, is to learn how to work with others. Learn from top to bottom. Actors have to learn how to work with the director and the director has to learn how to work with actors, and that's not just those two departments.

I think that Barack Obama faces a level of divisiveness, and I don't mean on a national level in terms of the North and the South and the Civil War; I really mean just politically.

Love is the one emotion actors allow themselves to believe.

I'd like to thank the academy and I'd like to thank my mother and I'd like to thank my mother again, because I forgot to thank her last year.

Acting is a great way to make a living, especially when I consider what my alternatives were and probably still are. I mean, you are only making movies. It is a lot less pressure than being a surgeon; although it seemed like the only other thing that I was qualified for was manual labour.

The first perk of theatre is the girls.

I think also there's no question that Lincoln has been diluted down through history in some way, almost by becoming as iconic as he is, in a way he's become diluted.