Actor

It's a wonderful narrative device to bring someone from the outside and look through his eyes if you want to describe the absurdity and preposterous reality that is accepted amongst the ones who are inside.

The actor is there to translate what's on the page onto the stage or the screen. So I find it important that an actor manages to actually get out of the way, vanish as a person behind the character, never to be seen or talked about again. That's my philosophy.

Europeans still believe that working is for living. Americans often have that the other way around.

'The Philadelphia Story' is one of my favorite movies.

You know, I don't support esoteric approaches to acting.

Praise is nothing that accumulates. Praise is a sequence, especially if you've toiled for a long time. Praise does not pile up. So in a way, you can't get too much. I don't consider it to be a quantity that you can measure by volume.

Stephen Sondheim I am in awe of.

I wouldn't really, realistically speaking, know the difference between wearing an S.S. uniform and a U.S. Marine uniform. To me it's all a uniform.

Sometimes I do stuff where people say, 'Why did you do that?' And you know, it's very simple. I do it because I've never done it before.

Something that is very special today might not be special tomorrow, but to hold it, to grasp it, to keep it, to make it special, to elevate it from the ordinary, that's when you open up the champagne. To make it sparkle.

The villain is usually the most interesting part. But it has to be a smart thing. Just dumb cliche villains with a Russian accent and big muscles and a mean face, I don't know. My Russian accent isn't that great, and the muscles aren't that big and the mean face is not enough. You know what I mean? It gets very boring. Tedious stuff.

I have always been so interested in film as a medium.

I used to hate exposure situations. What is generally referred to as 'red carpet.'

You know, I don't talk about the characters that I play. Years ago, I was a little timid about it and I kind of squirmed when I was asked, 'Could you tell us something about your character.' Now with a little self-confidence that comes with the grey beard, I just flatly refuse.

It bothers me that people who should know better believe a glossy magazine fantasy.

I think in Europe, movies are made like a commodity and then sold as art.

I only do what I like to do.

Everything that happens later in life is appreciated in a different way. You can appreciate the thing for what it is, which you couldn't if you were 25 and had never experienced much else. You would take it all for granted and think that's what life is like.

I am almost neurotically private myself. Because I think it's an important distinction to make between privacy and public sphere.

I think Stephen Sondheim is a - and I hardly ever use this word - but this is as close as it gets to a genius.