When you work without a script, you are in a sense working in a much more improvisational way than when you are prepared totally.

I think it's a terrible shame that politics has become show business.

I mean, movies are like your kids or your fingers and toes or something, it's pretty hard to pick favorites.

Making a film is a way for me to understand what it's like to be a murderer, to confess, to be a beaten wife, to be a minority, to be a victor, to get the girl, to lose the girl. I can do all of that through the practice of an art form.

I see my job as trying to entertain you, to be balanced in some way, and morally responsible. I don't want to glorify a killer. I don't want to glorify a rapist. I don't want to do those things, but on the other hand I don't want to lecture to you, either.

One wants to be able to experience being other people, remaking a reality, remaking a life, remaking a certain world.

The essence of acting is seeing the world from another point of view. That's what acting is.