I never practice before I never work hours on a script. I just choose my characters and trust them and after that it's about the director taking your hand.

It's not my job to try and alter the director's style - he's in charge and I'll always give him my trust.

Some directors cast you because they trust you to do the performance - but then they forget to direct you.

A lot of film directors are quite scared of actors. They are a bit of a nightmare sometimes but I like them. It looks like cunning but you try to get extra things from them all the time by stealth by making them feel confident so they trust you and you can push a bit.

Every time I make American film I just trust American directors and American writers.

Now therefore the Directors of the company are hereby ordered to see that precautions are taken to make travel on said railroad perfectly safe by using a screw with at least twenty-four inches diameter.

I only travel to good material a good director and a good company. I won't work in another country for a year any longer because I have a lovely wife and I adore her and I can't bear to be away from her.

Historically the director has been the key creative element in a film and we must maintain that. We must protect that in spite of the fact that there is new technology that's continually trying to erode that.

I was raised in New York City and raised in the New York City theater world. My father was a theater director and an acting teacher and it was not uncommon for me to have long discussions about the method and what the various different processes were to finding a character and exploring character and realizing that character.

I had come to the point when I realized it was unlikely that my film career was going to move beyond a certain level of role. And I was - because I had graphic instances of it - handicapped by the success of Star Trek. A director would say 'I don't want Jean-Luc Picard in my movie' - and this was compounded by X-Men as well.