Quotes

It is these children we must admire... Their honesty and bravery are models for us all. Their stories and their role here today - advocating for their cure, their own future - must be heard. - In reference to the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation International Children's Congress 2001.

I think every American actor wants to be a movie star. But I never wanted to do stupid movies, I wanted to do films. I vowed I would never do a commercial, or a soap opera - both of which I did as soon as I left the Acting Company and was starving.

I've never felt completely satisfied with what I've done. I tend to see things too critically. I'm trying to get over that. I've got the Jewish guilt and the Irish shame and it's a hell of a job distinguishing which is which.

[on improving his chess game for a role] I can now predict four or five moves ahead. I can see that I'm going to lose much sooner.

[on Sophie's Choice (1982)] There was a tremendous ensemble feeling. There was never any sense that anything but what was best for a scene was at stake. We were all treated equally, with a tremendous amount of caring.

[1983 interview] When I'm doing a film, I prefer the stage; when I'm working on stage, I prefer film. That doesn't sound neurotic, does it? Seriously, I like them both. They're both different. I've heard of a lot of actors who do both, who have done both for years, say that the stage is more fulfilling. Film is still new enough to me that, right now, I find film more fulfilling. In films, you don't have the audience and the communication and the contact that you do on stage. You have to wait six months or a year before you commune with an audience in a film, and you're not even there when it happens... When you work in a film, you're working in a vacuum... that also has advantages. It's a different sensation which is not altogether unpleasant.