My work requires acting at its most committed - it demands actors of enormous resilience but also intelligence and wit. It doesn't work for narcissistic or selfish actors.

But some actors I have met possess an intelligence that I can only dream of. It's about character it's about behavior. They understand things about people that I simply don't see.

Most good actors have a huge intelligence about the human condition and a real open heart to different kinds of people and behavior.

It's a wonderful thing working with young actors. I know a lot of people don't like working with children. I actually adore it because you watch their imagination open up and you watch them start to learn this job that I've been doing for so long. They come with such a lack of cynicism.

The imagination is part of the arsenal that actors draw from.

With actors like Steve McQueen Paul Newman and Harrison Ford what made them such icons is that even in dramatic movies their characters had a sense of humor.

White actors still get way more money in Hollywood. It's been that way for a very long time. I hope it'll change but it's a matter of forcing that change.

I feel an obligation to set the record straight. Actors that say they're affected by something that it changes their life that they take it home with them they're just trying to get nominated for an Oscar!

Actors always talk about taking their work home and I always think: 'What are you on? You just turn it off. You are at work and then you go home.'

I've seen the greatest actors in the world transcendent talents who can't find a home.