One of the first lessons you learn as an actor is to listen.

Casting is 65 percent of directing.

There are two things I will never do in my life. I will never climb Mount Everest, and I will never work with Val Kilmer again. There isn't enough money in the world.

The accolades usually come when you're dead or too old to get a job

I have gotten to a point in my life where I don't want to have dinner with someone I don't like.

And in Hollywood, you know, everyone is an expert. Most of them are expert editors. They can't direct, they can't write, they can't act, but, by God, they all think they can edit.

I've found that the more experts you have on a movie, the less control the director has.

The importance of the assistant director cannot be overemphasized.

I look at actors very closely. It's not an accident when the actors excel.

First, speaking for myself, I don't want to ever be in a position where I'm telling other directors how to make movies, because I don't think it's any of my business.

The first assistant director is just so important that the choice of that person is critical to the movie.

He made me question what was, when for a whole lifetime up till that moment, I accepted the world’s excuses.

Passion is universal humanity. Without it religion, history, romance and art would be useless.

I'll take any life in which I can make choices and have agency, and America is not a bad place for all that.

There are very few really stark black and white stories.

If you do enough things, you're going to eventually narrow it down to the things that really make you happy.

You have peace," the old woman said, "when you make it with yourself.

Enunciation, diction, all that stuff. None of that is in my personality.

It is a human thing to sin, but perseverance in sin is a thing of the devil.

Cease dependence on inspection to achieve quality. Eliminate the need for inspection on a mass basis by building quality into the product in the first place.