“What kind of failure was it? A failure because it’s misunderstood by others? A failure because you misunderstood it yourself?”

After looking at Salomaybe, I don’t know who the hell the real me is. I think it’s closest now to the real me because for one thing, I’m used to this.

When I was younger, there was the sex thing. That’s par for the course.When you’re a movie star, it went with it. It’s a kind of rite of passage, socially.

[Ocean’s Thirteen] is a great group, and it was an opportunity to work with Steven Soderbergh. But mainly? It was shot in L.A. and I want to be next to my kids.

I come from the South Bronx – a true descendant of the melting pot. I grew up in a really mixed neighborhood; it was a very integrated life.

It’s childish. It’s also responsible. It’s illuminating, enriching, joyful, drab. It’s bizarre, diabolical. It’s exciting.

My first language was shy. It’s only by having been thrust into the limelight that I have learned to cope with my shyness.

I was quite overtaken by success and fame. I was one of those types who responded to it in a negative way. It was not easy.

When I was younger, I would go to auditions to have the opportunity to audition, which would mean another chance to get up there and try out my stuff.

Be careful how you judge people, most of all friends. You don’t sum up a man’s life in one moment.

Our life is looking forward or looking back, that’s it. Where is the moment?

And then you go back like a few days later and then you listen to the movie. And it sort of plays in your mind like a film, like a first rough cut of a movie.

Learning (Shakespeare’s plays) …in school was a bit of a bore.

The story of Salome, the play itself and what it is, what it contains, and my journey as an actor, as a director, as a filmmaker, as a person struggling with whatever I’m struggling with.

Here in these films [Salome the play and Salomaybe], I have the opportunity to say something about how I feel about things.

I would come home and she would tell me about her life that day and all her problems and I remember saying to her, look, you really got me through this picture because I would shed everything when I came home.

Sometimes they are the same exact thing.

I’m a misunderstood genius.” “What’s misunderstood?” “Nobody thinks I’m a genius.

It means that if they misunderstood Comfort and Joy, they misunderstood my other films.

To refrain from storytelling is perhaps one of the highest forms of respect we can pay. Those people, with no stories to circle them, can die without being misunderstood.

She, too, had worn a mask in assuming a contempt for him, whilst, as a matter of fact, she completely misunderstood him

I think I’m pretty misunderstood, because I’m not just about football.

Senator, if I seem clear to you, you must have misunderstood me’.

Romeo is the most misunderstood character in literature, I think. He’s hardcore to play because he’s displaying the characteristics of Hamlet at the beginning, and, well, then everything else happens.

If I seem unduly clear to you, you must have misunderstood what I said.