I was raised to be in service to something larger than myself. A lot of actors concentrate on what they will get out of the profession, rather than what they can offer it. The way I see it, if you come with something to offer, you can offer it forever.

I was raised to be in service to something larger than myself. A lot of actors concentrate on what they will get out of the profession, rather than what they can offer it. The way I see it, if you come with something to offer, you can offer it forever.

I don't have a waist: I'm a breadbox on top of legs.

I'm interested in playing old ladies because I am becoming one. And I want to become a very good one!

If you accept limitations then, yeah, you'll be limited. If you don't accept limitations then the horizon is pretty vast.

When you look at me you don't immediately imagine a very very glamorous icon, so it's only in the theater that I get to do these experiments. I've been an actor about 51 years now. I've played everything from an 8-year-old black boy to a 72-year-old French matriarch, and they hardly hire you to do that on TV.

Both my parents were actors. I was schooled to think that acting was an important social service, that it was something that human beings need.