I’ve got the Jewish guilt and the Irish shame and it’s a hell of a job distinguishing which is which.
I can play characters who sing, but I don’t like singing in a nightclub or something. It’s not my metier.
Nothing makes an actor feel freer and more inventive and more creative than being trusted.
Ambition without contribution is of no significance.
It was all completely incomprehensible to me. I was fearful of the language. You had to look up every third word.
Playing Shakespeare requires technique. You don’t play a Bach toccata by getting in the mood.
Nobody sees the same movie. I’m sure there are people who saw Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid and thought “Finally a gay movie about men who really care about each other. Thank God!” That’s not what I saw necessarily but I don’t think any two people see the same movie.
It never ceases to surprise me, the people I get to work with. I’m in a French film with Sandrine Bonnaire? I adore Sandrine Bonnaire. I’m doing a picture for Robert Redford? The Sundance Kid? I have to pinch myself sometimes.
You know, actors are fans, too. And talent is very attractive to me.
When you have satire, it has to be real. No matter how outrageous the comedy becomes, you have to believe in the characters.
Don’t kiss a man who hasn’t shaved.
Some of my favorite characters that I’ve played have been very pompous because I love making fun of pompous people.
I never went to class. That the university graduated me at all is an indictment of our educational system.
I just don’t think I’m a very good singer.
Hindsight. It’s like foresight without a future.
I had studied piano since I was 13, but I was surrounded by students who’d been playing since they were 5. I realized I was never going to be anything but mediocre.
Dogs do have feelings, I gather.
The worth of a life is not determined by a single failure or a solitary success.
I see God as a song-and-dance man. If I had my way, he’d be able to carry a tune, too. Preferably, one of mine.
People ask, ‘What’s the best role you’ve ever played?’ The next one.
But, I do think, on a very simplistic level, that we can project onto dogs because they are so innocent. They don’t come with a lot of baggage.