Acting touches nerves you have absolutely no control over.

Market forces impose certain rules before a film can actually get made.

Each character I play has different dimensions. I’m not interested in words that pull them together.

My parents certainly didn’t have anything to do with the theater. I’m some kind of accident.

I’m always aware of the camera and it feels like that’s the audience.

I’ve never been able to plan my life. I just lurch from indecision to indecision.

I don’t think it’s right that everybody knows everything about me.

I’m a quite serious actor who doesn’t mind being ridiculously comic.

All I want to see from an actor is the intensity and accuracy of their listening.

My idea of a real treat is Magic Mountain without standing in line.

I think worrying things are going on in England – a real apathy.

Talent is an accident of genes – and a responsibility.

I was 7, and I remember being given a part in a play and thinking, This is exciting.

You can lull the paying customers as long as they get slapped.

If people want to know who I am, it is all in the work.

Acting touches nerves you have absolutely no control over.

Maverick is a word which appeals to me more than misfit. Maverick is active, misfit is passive.

It would be wonderful to think that the future is unknown and sort of surprising.

If only life could be a little more tender and art a little more robust.

Who I am gets in the way of people looking innocently at the parts I play.

If you spend any time in Los Angeles, there’s only one topic of conversation.

What is it about actors? God knows I get bored with actors talking about themselves.

One longs for a director with a sense of imagination.

Nothing gives me as much pleasure as travelling. I love getting on trains and boats and planes.

I want to swim in both directions at once. Desire success, court failure.

The audience should feel like voyeurs. Their response is absolutely crucial.

On film you put all your energies into a single glance.

If you could build a house on a trampoline, that would suit me fine.

I think there’s some connection between absolute discipline and absolute freedom.

There’s a voice inside you that tells you what you should do.

Somebody with Debbie Reynolds’ features doesn’t get cast as the Wicked Witch.

When I get off the plane in England I always feel about two inches shorter.

What’s interesting about the process of acting is how often you don’t know what you’re doing.