The Italian tough guys, dey talk real deep like dis down in dere chests... while the Irish speak way high-ah, up here in their heads.
I hung around with Jason Robards, Richard Harris, Robert Shaw, Richard Burton. I knew not to match them for drinks.
I felt I knew Lugosi. Like him, I had worked for good directors and terrible directors.
I played a wide variety of roles.
'North by Northwest' took two and a half to three months to film. When I look back, I realise I wasn't intimidated by Hitchcock and Cary Grant. They were so accepting of me.
A good director makes a playground and allows you to play.
I think we've all done things we're not particularly fond of. Everybody goes through it and comes out the other end, and goes on with his life as if it didn't happen.
The winners shouldn't necessarily win, and the losers shouldn't necessarily lose.
A film is not going to change the world. But if it can do that to individuals on an individual level, I think it's a magnificent movie.
Of course, I remember the Disney 'Pinocchio.' I was a little kid then... It was very instructive. Little boys who don't behave wind up in lots of trouble.
I'm certainly not going to play any of Matt Damon's roles in the future. But he will eventually grow into mine, since he'll be around for a long time.
Pictures are packaged and cast by agents.
I can take scripts directly to actors. Agents don't like to hear that.
You have to be crazy to do theater.
They were like little palaces: all rococo or art deco. You'd walk in off those hot streets into a nice, air-cooled theater, and you'd spend all day watching Cagney or Jimmy Stewart. It cost all of 17 cents.
The modern cineplexes are mundane, dull boxes. But 'The Majestic' pays tribute to the movie palaces that made people feel like royalty. It honors a time when pictures helped Americans get through grim periods like the blacklist and the war.
I was being groomed to be the theatrical caricaturist. And I know if I got that job, I'd never quit. So I quit. I knew I wanted to go into the theater... I wanted to act.
I trained as an actor with Lee Strasberg, Elia Kazan, and Harold Clurman, and those guys set a very high bar.
The average scene in a film, you have to shoot it 15, 20 times. That means you got to laugh or cry 15, 20 times.
I was very thin, exceedingly thin. If you look at 'North By Northwest,' you'll get a clue.
