People have a different idea of how movies are made than they really are. On a certain level, everyone throws ideas into the hopper. It's not like the actors are wind-up dolls that you push out onto the floor, play with, then put back in the box. You get people around you who you trust; the writer, the producer, the director and all the actors all contribute.

His Holiness [the Dalai Lama] has told me, urgently and repeatedly, that he thinks my photographs are crap. His exact words were, 'These photos are of poor quality. Why is there no sharp focus? There is no clarity!' I said, 'But your Holiness, it's Goyaesque.' And he said, 'No! It's out of focus!'

There's really one character for every actor. The voyage is to find that one character.

If people lose their land, they have nothing. You lose your land - you lose your culture, you lose self.

I know who I am. No one else knows who I am. If I was a giraffe, and someone said I was a snake, I'd think, no, actually I'm a giraffe.

There are some problems on this planet that seem to be intractable.

I do my work as an actor, but another part of my work goes to the piece as a whole. I can be fairly detached looking at my work and be brutal on myself.