My mentor, [Ingmar] Bergman, when we worked on stage, he said you can't convince a thousand people at the big stage where we were working. You can't convince everybody, but just pick one every night that you perform for and make sure that he or she will have an experience that alters their life in a more positive way. So, just one every night. That's worth all the struggle and screaming.

If you were my agent and I was making $10 million a movie and made four movies a year, that means you have a salary of $4 million.

To me, the most important thing in life is to be a human being. Second is acting.

I've been very lucky and fortunate to meet people that are very inspirational in their spirits, too, and not just as filmmakers - in their personal life. I mean, Steven Spielberg is very inspirational just to sit down and talk for an hour, like Ingmar Bergman was. They know so much about life and, you know, movie-making, so it's just wonderful to be around those people.

I love to fantasize still, as I did as a little boy. If I see a movie, I want to fantasize about what it's all about.

If you do a character, always make the character with a big question mark. Even if the character is very enigmatic and all over the place, make him always with a question mark, because if you turn a question mark upside down, like they do in South America in Spanish, then it becomes a hook.

I started as a director, but I was too bored with actors. I preferred to act.