'Visiting Mr. Green' is a good play. I enjoy being in it, and I have a wonderful colleague, Aidan deSalaiz, to work with. Audiences like it a lot. What's not to like?

I am filled with awe that filmmakers have the capacity to stir us and give us back a sense of wonder.

But, when I toil in the field of Jewish culture which I frequently do, I am indeed a Jewish artist.

When something is moving you get that intake of breath and that stillness from the audience.

By showing hunger, deprivation, starvation and brutality, as well as endurance and nobility, documentaries inform, prod our memories, even stir us to action. Such films do battle for our very soul.

After the advent of the written word, the masses who could not - or were not permitted to - read, were given sermons by the few who could.

I am determined to give the Yiddish language a fighting chance to survive.