If you dream you’ve got to dream that it’s going to happen. Remember that. If you dream you have to imagine that it will actually happen.
In my home, who is my boss? If you ask my wife she’ll say certainly not her. She claims that she can’t make me do anything and so she’s not my boss. I am. I’m pretty sure, maybe.
I was lucky in that when the opportunity came, I was prepared to meet it.
I want to be up there, being lauded and applauded and given all these and on the red carpet, waving at the hordes of people.
When I was growing up, I didn’t see me in the movies except in certain lesser roles. If it wasn’t funny, I wasn’t there. Then Sidney Poitier came along, and he wasn’t funny. He was just good. There’s me. So that was my pattern.
I have four children and nine grandchildren. I’m presently wearing out my second wife.
I avoid seeing myself while I’m working on role so I won’t see “me.”
The trick to any profession is making it look easy.
Growing up in Mississippi, I realized that it was separate and unequal and all that, but it was still a safe place.
Being blind is as simple as closing your eyes. The blind don’t act any different than you or I. You never see a blind person going around saying, ‘I’m blind.’ So if you want to play blind just close your eyes and keep them closed and fare thee well.
I’ve never had any intimate relationships with a dolphin.
I think you have to be left-brained, to a certain extent, to understand science. I can talk about it, but I can’t do it.
If you sat down and you wrote a script, you may write something that’s way beyond what you’ve ever seen me do, but if you thought of me to do it, I would be flattered to be asked to do something other than be wise.
In growing up, I was a child of the movies. I went to the movies every given opportunity, and that’s pretty much what has informed a lot of my choices.
I think you take a job, you owe it as much passion as the job itself demands. And most jobs demand that you be totally committed.
I’ve just never been the kind of actor that things have stayed with. I’ve never needed to carry a character off stage.
That’s really just the worst part of life really, you get bracketed somewhere and the next thing you know people are saying, ‘No. No. That’s not the type. Get me so and so.’ I’m not a type. I’m an actor.
If your income on films or whatever you’re producing using film drops below a certain level, then you don’t have enough money to stay in business. People like to say that this is all just about making money, but if you don’t make money, you don’t make anything.
Writing I think, out of what all of us do, writing is the hardest. You’re the only who start with nothing except what’s up here. You do that. It’s really hard I think, acting is not.
I don’t think that anyone learns anything. Well, I mean, you do always learn something if you have your eyes and ears open. You do learn something from every outing, every time that you go for it. But for me what actors do is interact and that’s why you have to do that.