Sometimes it's easier for people who are in authority to be authoritarian, because people know where you stand.

My job is usually to express emotion as freely as possible.

And it took to "The Devil Wears Prada" to play someone tough, who had to make hard decisions, who was running an organization, and sometimes that takes making tough decisions for a certain kind of man to empathize. That's the word - empathize. Feel the story through her. And that's the first time anybody has ever said that they felt that way.

Instant gratification is not soon enough.

How do I do that preparation [for film]? Just an immersion. I have a musician's, I guess, ear for the sound of the voice but it's also important to me, in the case of [playing] someone who is controversial, to get the outlines of the character right because how they present themselves to the world has a great deal to do with how people feel about them.

The formula of happiness and success is just, being actually yourself, in the most vivid possible way you can.

The progression of roles you take strings together a portrait of an actor, but it's a completely random process.