[Maggie Smith] brings new meaning to the phrase "doesn't suffer fools." She has just the most amazing, dry timing of anyone ever, I think. I think everyone's always known about it, but with her resurgence on Downton Abbey, a whole new generation has been introduced to it, which is just great.

It's the media that take an isolated incident and make it a deciding factor in a presidential campaign, as opposed to the real issues, like abortion, the homeless, the deficit. The same is true with actors and their lifestyles.

['John F. Kennedy] movie is based on a massive best-selling book, which is always helpful. And then the script was amazing and answered my question, "Why this? Why now?" And the "why now" is that it's 50 years since the assassination, and the country needs to have and will have a conversation about that. And the "why this" is the construct, which I think is sort of ingenious.

Conventions are, by nature, a party. I mean, that's why people become delegates. They come from all over the world to exercise their democratic rights and to party.

I'll be a role model on my terms, but don't make a role model on your terms.

Whether you're a presidential front-runner, or an Academy Award-winning actor, or head of a TV ministry, if you stay in the public eye long enough they're going to try and find a scandal.

I have been looking forward to this age of my life for a long time. In my twenties, I marked the days on the calendar - I was sick of playing high-school kids.