Unfortunately, I feel as actors we have to fight for the right to really go in as many directions as possible.

I try to offer as much as I can to the director so he has as much to work with as possible to create the character that, really, he wants to create in a sense.

I was always drawn toward the Actor's Studio. I studied at the Lee Strasberg Institute when I first came to New York. One of my favorite teachers was one of Al [Pachino]'s teachers, a guy named Charlie Laughton, who was just a wonderful, wonderful man.

I've had so many people just come up to me and say, 'When you came up on the screen, everybody in the theater applauded.' It's just so sweet, really.

I've never done anything for money. My first love is things of limited commercial appeal. I could be happy doing Shakespeare for the rest of my life.

I don't know if I've ever played a character who's close to me. There have been some elements of myself in different roles. Sometimes, I show one side of myself and then completely conceal the other.

I watch many, many, many independent films every year that you see once in a film festival and they're never heard of ever again. Many of them are very, very good.