I don't speak out because I am an actor nor will I keep silent because I am an actor. I respect my profession, but it endows me with no special privileges; but it also does not limit me or muzzle me. I am a person and a citizen with the attendant responsibilities of voice and vote.

I am a Zionist, an ardent supporter of Israel, its defender when I deem Israel to be right and its critic when I deem it to be wrong.

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

I do prefer the stage. It's really the granddaddy of them all.

I have always striven to raise the voice of hope for a world where hate gives way to respect and oppression to liberation.

For I firmly believe that Jewish life, indeed any communal life, can only be organized according to democratic principles.

On the stage you're there, it's live. There's a beginning, a middle, an end. When something is funny you hear it right away.