We talked about Tootsie, the idea in Tootsie is that a man becomes a better man for having been a woman.

I mean, certainly writing, painting, photography, dance, architecture, there is an aspect of almost every art form that is useful and that merges into film in some way.

I have one life. I am a certain age. I'm married to one person. I have a certain number of children. I won't have another life other than that, but I do have many lives through the films.

There's a religious basis to their [Bush and Chaney] kind of conservatism. It's rooted in a kind of fundamentalism. I'm afraid of that. I don't like that idea. I think all extremism is suspect.

It's always interesting to play people different from yourself, it would be boring for me to play myself.

I'm not going to be an interpreter at the U.N. I'm not going to live in Africa on a farm or whatever, but I am going to see the world through those eyes when I make those films.

I make films, and I hope that people come to see them. If they don't, I pay a big price. But I can't make decisions where I would change my own standards or my own taste in order to court the public in some way.