I think that acting is a very humanizing profession.

Sometimes I'll be flipping through the channels and I'll see a movie I'm in. And I'll probably stop and think, 'Sure, I'll watch this.'

I think that there is no doubt that every experience you have in your life, whether it's playing a character or something else, you bring that to the work.

It's the way I feel about acting. That we are given clues by a writer about someone's essence or persona and it's our job to try to figure out which of those clues are true, which of clues we decide to follow and which of those clues we think are red herrings, or only in the way another character thinks of that character.

I think you need the failures to get the success. You learn more from that.

I think people love it when anybody acts bad; its not particular to me.

I'm supposed to convince you, for two hours, that I'm somebody else. Now if you know everything about my life, if you think you've got me figured out and you think you know all my dark secrets, how am I ever going to convince you that I'm somebody else?

Im always taken aback by things that are successful that I think are just crap, and then Im completely surprised when things I do end up being successful because you walk into things and you never know Its just really remarkable.

I terribly miss - we all miss, I think - somebody like the great producer Irving Thalberg. He had a foot in both camps: He understood us creative people. And he understood the money people.