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.

We're part of a greater humanity and we can actually affect the world by the choices we make once we leave the theater.

If you have to have a job in this world, a high-priced movie star is a pretty good gig.

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.

What we're doing with Band of Brothers is trying to put it into human terms, so it is not just a flickering, black and white myth on a screen, it is a resonant story. I want the audience to recognize themselves in these men. They're not just mythic heroes.

But television, when I was doing it, was all about scoring. You had to make these jokes bang, do whatever you could to make the material really pop. And if it didn't, there was something wrong with the material, or with you.

The same way that I know that I'll never do a movie as good or as celebrated as 'Forrest Gump,' I know that I'll never do a movie as bad as 'Bonfire of the Vanities.'