'Mission' was a mind game. The ideal mission was getting in and getting out without anyone ever knowing we were there.
I love to see lack of clarity in a performance as well as clarity, as well as trust, as well as the kinds of things that human beings go through. I love to see spontaneity and 'inevitability.' How it gets there is going to shock the hell out of me, but it will get there somehow.
My father was an Austrian, and he brought some Torahs over to this country, ancient Torahs that were slipped out of Germany.
I've spent a lot of time playing roles that didn't really challenge me. I suppose every actor feels that way.
All 'Hamlets' are different, and it's the most overwritten play ever written.
Every young actor wants to do 'Hamlet' on the West End. Why? Because they can bring something to it.
All an audience wants to believe is that what's going on is happening for the first time.
My technique has always been to include all the periphery around me.
To really have craft, you must be able to repeat something as one has to do in films.
I always say, if I tell you a joke right now and it's funny, you laugh. Now, we set the lights, and I tell you the joke again, it's hard to find it funny the second time.
My best stuff as a teacher was always to find the problems within each individual actor, and I'll suggest things that I know that particular actor will have difficulty with.
I'm a big believer that an actor should be able to pick up any piece of material and act it, the way a good musician can.
Human beings are fascinating with religion and stories about not dying. Or dying and being brought back to life. I think it's just part of our make up.
The idea of death is something that doesn't make sense to a lot of people. But to bring something back - or vampires who never die - is a logical fantasy for a human being.
I run the Actor's Studio on the West Coast, and one of the things I say all the time to the people I teach - many of whom are acting teachers - is that an actor needs to make choices that make him present.
As a Jew, there's a need to keep that atrocity alive. There were Catholics and gypsies and homosexuals who died in the Holocaust, too. It's amazing that people allowed this slaughter to take place. There's a need to make these films and reiterate it happened.
I don't think villains think they are villains.
The way a character sounds is so important to how you're going to play him.
If I were a writer, the Pulitzer Prize would be important to me. This is my profession, so an Oscar is important.
With 'Avatar,' you're beginning to see the need for less and less actors and less of an appreciation for live acting.
