My son is a gentleman and a professional who is pursuing something difficult. Yet the only thing he has ever asked me for is advice - never favors. He has just said, "What do you think I should do, Dad?" It's extraordinary to me that my son would listen to and have faith in whatever wisdom I can offer.

I am a lay historian by nature. I seek out an empirical reflection of what truth is. I sort of want dates and motivations and I want the whole story. But I've always felt, unconsciously, that all human history is that connection from person to person to person, event to event to event, and from idea to idea.

It's difficult to say no sometimes. I often hear, "They'll really take care of you," or "Someone else is going to take the role if you don't play it." Some of the best advice I ever received was to always ask myself: Am I going to kill myself if somebody else takes this role? The answer is almost always no.

Mass-market movies have become about one thing. They kind of declare themselves right off the bat. . . . But when I go to see (a film), I want to be surprised. I want to see something I never expected. And when you get that, it should be celebrated.

Reading a script is usually as exciting as reading a boilerplate legal document, so when you read one that makes you feel as if you're seeing the movie, you know it's something different.

The nature of motion capture is only going to work for certain films. It's not going to put any other type of movies out of business.

I'm not a smart man, but I know what love is.