I became an actor by accident. I suppose I figured since I was in musical comedy from the time I was a teenager, I suppose I figured that I'd always been in that world to some extent.

Emotional power is maybe the most valuable thing that an actor can have.

I wasn't a trained actor, I was trained in musical comedy theater, and when you do that, the audience is completely part of the thing. It's like Elizabethan theater. You play the scene, and then you turn - the audience is part of it.

As an actor you become that lighting rod between the person who made the play and the audience.

In my personal life I'm very conservative. I've been married to the same person for nearly 50 years, I'm scrupulous about paying bills, avoiding debt. I'm very careful. But as an actor I'm pretty reckless. I've done a lot of things that, when I see myself on screen, I have to shut my eyes. And I've made a whole bunch of movies that nobody sees, including me.

I became an actor by accident.

Obviously an actor draws on his own experience.

I come from a show-business family, so wanting to become an actor never crossed my mind. It was just a part of my life.

I certainly have never been an actor who can play the Everyman guy - or, I don't tend to get those parts. I've tended to play eccentrics. I've played a lot of villains, of course.