I can play characters who sing, but I don't like singing in a nightclub or something. It's not my metier.

But you have to trust your instincts. Because you're not going to try it 20 different ways during rehearsal. You'll try it two or three different ways, maybe, but then you've got five other scenes you're shooting that day. You've got to keep going.

I think every American actor wants to be a movie star. But I never wanted to do stupid movies, I wanted to do films. I vowed I would never do a commercial, nor would I do a soap opera - both of which I did as soon as I left the Acting Company and was starving.

I've got the Jewish guilt and the Irish shame and it's a hell of a job distinguishing which is which.

It never ceases to surprise me, the people I get to work with. I'm in a French film with Sandrine Bonnaire? I adore Sandrine Bonnaire. I'm doing a picture for Robert Redford? The Sundance Kid? I have to pinch myself sometimes.

Just because you're not sweating doesn't mean you're not putting in the work.

It was all completely incomprehensible to me. I was fearful of the language. You had to look up every third word.