If it bothers me on the page, I don't do it. If it attracts me on the page and moves me, makes me think a bit, makes me laugh, makes me cry, I'm interested in it. If it's there on the page, it means it's there and up to me to bring it out. I have done some films along the way that have been screwed up and not as good as they read. Some films that are not that good on the page turn into good movies. So I'm fallible is what I'm saying.

If it bothers me on the page, I don't do it. If it attracts me on the page and moves me, makes me think a bit, makes me laugh, makes me cry, I'm interested in it. If it's there on the page, it means it's there and up to me to bring it out. I have done some films along the way that have been screwed up and not as good as they read. Some films that are not that good on the page turn into good movies. So I'm fallible is what I'm saying.

Any good director creates a playground. That's what they do. They hire the right actor, open the door and let them play because stuff will happen, right then and there. The audience wants to believe that what's going on is happening for the first time, ever. That's what acting is. That's what good scene writing is.

Playing a drunk doesn't mean being a drunk, only bad actors try to be drunk. A real drunk tries to be sober, he wants another drink. How a character hides their feelings tells us who they are, no one shows their feelings except bad actors.

People are in denial all the time, hiding things. If I tell you a racist or dirty joke and you laugh, you're telling me something about yourself, which you don't want to reveal. Accessing that hidden side is what good acting is all about. And there are only a handful of people in the entire United States who interest me as actors, who surprise me. Even people who write about it, don't know anything about good performance. At least when you work at General Motors, you know something about cars.

Everything that has happened to me is of value to me. As painful as certain things are, and have been, and were, there's a use for those things in my life and in my work

The talented actor needs craft. When you do a stage play, you do it once each night in chronological order. In a film you're going to wind up doing a scene 15-20 times, just by the nature of the process. If I tell you a joke once, it's funny. The more times I tell, the less funny it is. How do you get to the point where you can laugh again? You also may have to cry again and again.