If you're gonna let the character be the story, you better set a tone that allows the actors to do the best work they can do.

It's very, very rare in this business [moviemaking] where a script lands on your lap ready to go.

We actually did a lot of takes on this movie [J. Edgar Hoover]. I never left the set wanting more. That's for sure. I don't know. This was a very difficult character for me and a lot of the other actors here, and at times we went and did 8 or 9 or 10 takes on a single day.

To play a repressed gay man, I had to explore what life was like in an era of sexual repression.

If you can do what you do best and be happy, you're further along in life than most people.

If you're gonna let the character be the story, you better set a tone that allows the actors to do the best work they can do.

Doing what we do [filming], you have to be your own critic and judge and adjudicate as to what you do and how it turned out.