I’ve always said the one advantage an actor has of converting to a director is that he’s been in front of the camera. He doesn’t have to get in front of the camera again, subliminally or otherwise.

I like to change characters and then, slowly I believe the audience treat me as, like an actor who can fight. It’s not like an action star.

I have an immense amount of respect for acting. I’ve always loved movies and was always fascinated by movie-making. But to become an actor, I wanted to commit myself.

The great advantage of a hotel is that it is a refuge from home life.

Black or white good parts are hard to come by. A good actor with a good opportunity has a shot; without the opportunity it doesn’t matter how good you are.

A special effect is a tool, a means of telling a story. A special effect without a story is a pretty boring thing.

Our stories come from our lives and from the playwright’s pen, the mind of the actor, the roles we create, the artistry of life itself and the quest for peace.

I really wanted to be a model when I was little. I loved photography, and I loved being on camera. But I was short and chubby, so I couldn’t. Anyway, being an artist is way more interesting than just being a model because it’s about you and what you want to be. You’re not being treated like a clothes hanger.

I loved the material when I first read it, and the experience of making the film was a great one. So when we came around to complete the trilogy, I just signed on board without even reading the scripts because the experience of the first film was so good.

I like the anonymity that directors can have about their films.

I’ve choreographed all of my movies.

I’m proud to be an actor. See, as an actor, you live longer. Football players, the brain and all that stuff, ooh-eee, that’s not good.

Years ago I met Richard Burton in Port Talbot, my home town, and afterwards he passed in his car with his wife, and I thought, ‚I want to get out and become like him‘. Not because of Wales, because I love Wales, but because I was so limited as a child at school and so bereft and lonely, and I thought becoming an actor would do that.

I was lousy in school. Real screwed-up. A moron. I was antisocial and didn’t bother with the other kids. A really bad student. I didn’t have any brains. I didn’t know what I was doing there. That’s why I became an actor.

Morgan Freeman is so class. He’s so cool. He’s so scary.

I worked with Steven Spielberg on Amistad… he seemed so very secure in himself that he let me do things.

If you look at my job, my union card, it says ‚actor.‘ It don’t say nothing about celebrity, movie star, nothing like that, and that’s one thing that keeps me humble.

Hollywood has a way of making everything seem like an overnight success.

Michelle Pfeiffer hasn’t been finding a lot of work recently because she doesn’t like what a woman her age is offered. That’s a real double standard. You get Sean Connery, who gets older and older, still playing opposite young ladies, but it doesn’t work the other way around.

We are not to expect to be translated from despotism to liberty in a featherbed.

An actor is supposed to be a sensitive instrument.

A director makes 100 decisions an hour. Students ask me how you know how to make the right decision, and I say to them, ‚If you don’t know how to make the right decision, you’re not a director.‘

I was always interested – I mean, it’s kind of part of your job – I was always interested in the camera.

The next thing I knew, I was out of the service and making movies again. My first picture was called, GI Blues. I thought I was still in the army.

I’m not really an actor, I’m a reactor; I’m a pitchman. That’s what I do best. Nobody can do it any better.

Like any creative human being, I would like a bit more control so that it would be a little easier for me when the director says, ‚One tear, right now,‘ that one tear would pop out.

Brad and I have never wanted our kids to be actors, but we also want them to be around film and be a part of Mommy and Daddy’s life and for it not to be kept from them, either. We just want them to have a good, healthy relationship with it.

It’s simple: You get a part. You play a part. You play it well. You do your work and you go home. And what is wonderful about movies is that once they’re done, they belong to the people. Once you make it, it’s what they see. That’s where my head is at.

War grows out of the desire of the individual to gain advantage at the expense of his fellow man.

I started in action, and then I went to comedy school.

In order for me to be successful… In order to be a great artist – musician, actor, painter, whatever – you must be able to be private in public at all times. That is what we do.

Film is not an easy occupation. There’s a lot of occupations that are difficult and film is one of them.

Being young is a great advantage, since we see the world from a new perspective and we are not afraid to make radical changes.

I’ll continue to make the typical Adam Sandler comedies.

The most important thing for a director is being able to communicate.

It’s very rare that you get a director that lets you be creative and bring what you feel your character should do or should be.

As we all know, sequels can be tricky.

Arafat’s departure has created an awesome opportunity.

There’s no real excuse for being successful enough as an actor to do what you want and then selling out. You do it pure. You don’t try to adapt it, make it commercial.

Besides entertainment and action, I want to educate. You know, as a producer or director, we do have a responsibility to society.

Next to knowing when to seize an opportunity, the most important thing in life is to know when to forego an advantage.

Film is a very tight little box. If you don’t fit in that box, you’re gone. Television, there’s more room to move around.

I am not influenced by the techniques or fashions of any other motion picture company.

Steven Spielberg was my childhood hero.

I will never win an Oscar, and do you know why? First of all, because I’m not Jewish. Secondly, I make too much money for all those old farts in the Academy.

I’ve known Ben Stiller for a minute. One of my first movies was ‚Along Came Polly.‘

Well, in order for me to be successful… In order to be a great artist – musician, actor, painter, whatever – you must be able to be private in public at all times.

I love good film, whether it’s an independent or studio film. The independent films, I think the good ones aren’t necessarily eccentric ones but they’re the more specific ones.

I want to try something different in Hollywood, to tell the audience I am not just an actor star – I am an actor, too.

Later on they send me to Hollywood. To make movies. It was all new to me. I was only 21 years old.

The life of an action star is very short. I want to be an actor like Robert De Niro, like Dustin Hoffman or Clint Eastwood who in their 70s or 80s can still act.

I’m one of those people who says, ‚yes, cinema died when they invented sound.‘

Difference of opinion is advantageous in religion. The several sects perform the office of a Censor – over each other.

Here’s the thing. We do a movie with a predominantly black cast, and it’s put in a category of being a black film. When other movies are done with a predominantly white cast, we don’t call them a white film. I’m trying to remove the stigma off things they call black films.

I have thought there was some advantage even in death, by which we mingle with the herd of common men.

I get impatient with people working on a film that have their head in their hands like it’s the most complicated thing in the world.

Life is pleasant. Death is peaceful. It’s the transition that’s troublesome.

The knighthood was a tremendous honour, I don’t dismiss it. But I feel embarrassed by the flowery, theatrical stuff that goes with being an actor.

It’s easy to become very self-critical when you’re an actor. Then you get critiqued by the critics. Whether you agree with them or not, people are passing judgment on you.

Meryl and Katharine Hepburn are probably the two greatest actresses of this and the last century.

If I want to do well in racing I need to be more focused so I stopped going to school. If I wasn’t a very good driver it would not be a wise decision, but it gives me an advantage over my competitors.