When you're in survival mode, you numb yourself.

Growing up, many of us are taught to place limits on what we can accomplish while on earth. We tend to think of things in binary form: either as possible or, more frequently, impossible.

I don't much like being directed. I enjoy being allowed to play.

I don't usually get to play fathers or grandfathers or uncles. Now that I'm older, maybe I can play people closer to myself. I'd like that.

Early on, I played one or two disturbed people, and I guess I must have been good at it, because it stuck. But, you know, I'm a regular guy. I stay home a lot, I make an effort to keep a distance from the whole social thing, the openings, the parties. I try to live in a calm way.

Even in the limo, I buckle my seatbelt. I got that seatbelt on before the car moves.

It's interesting - a lot of good actors are good mimes. But I'm terrible. If I tried to do an impression, nobody would know what I was doing.

I've made movies that I thought were good. I've made movies that I thought were okay, but then I was very good. And sometimes you're in a movie and you think, I wish more people saw that - because you're good. And it just works out that the movie gets lost. But that's show business.

I'm in a place in my life where I get offered parts that I didn't get offered before - fathers and uncles and grandfathers and so on. And it took me a long time to get to that place, but I'm glad because it opens up new territory.

Laurence Olivier said in an interview once that when he plays a tragedy he always aims for the funny parts, and the other way around. Because in a comedy you look for what's serious. I think that's true. Sometimes things are really funny if you're absolutely earnest. If you're really serious, it's hilarious.

I always like to watch comics and it's interesting that you can tell if someone's funny in 10 seconds.

Some people can do things and get away with it. Comics are famously like that. Why is it that some guys can say the most horrible things and it's not offensive, it's funny?

I like to go to work, and also, I don't have any kids. I don't have any hobbies. I don't like to travel. So going to work is kind of it.

Usually directors hire me because I'm what they are looking for. But once in a while, and it's very rare, they will hire me and then try to make me over.

I was born in America but all of my friends' parents, everybody's parents, including my own, had come to America from Europe. Many people in my neighborhood hardly bothered to learn English.

Well, I was sort of a jack-of-all-trades in show business for a long time. I was a singer and a dancer and then I got a job as an actor.

I think the fact that I was raised in show business, in New York City, in the '50s, that's affected my personality to the point that I'm a little different.

To me, there are things you're good at and things you're not so good at. For some reason, I'm good at darker characters. It has to do with how you look.

Onstage I have a natural chutzpa that audiences like. I'm out there.

I'll tell you, Quentin Tarantino really writes the most amazing dialogue.

I was never a child actor. I was a child performer.

My background is in musical comedy. I didn't know I was going to be an actor. But all my points of reference have to do with musical comedy and in being kind of a showoff.

It's what actors call a big, juicy part, when you're a leading man. I don't get a lot of those. I get a lot of supporting things.

To be honest, I was never very ambitious. And I still am not.