I went into the family business. To me, it was the norm and not the exception.

Love is as strict as acting. If you want to love somebody, stand there and do it. If you don't, don't. There are no other choices.

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.

I think the 20s are a vastly overrated decade. We promise kids that once they get out of school, life will begin and their dreams will come true. But then comes the struggle.

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

I'm not glamorous, I don't have a look, I don't know anything about opera, I have no Italian, and I'm too old.

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.