“It had a tremendous influence on my becoming an actor.”

“What was that, George, what were you doing?” And he said, “They were sleeping.” You’re always trying to catch them.

I destroy the painting as soon as I can see what it is. When I can make out something in it,

I think what you see [in Salome the play backstage] is an artist having this fit of temperament.

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.

We destroy ourselves when we stop feeling. If you bury your feelings within you, you become a graveyard.

I love who I am. I love what I’ve become.

I am scared of getting old. I am scared of being ill.

When evil-doing comes like falling rain, nobody calls out “stop!” When crimes begin to pile up they become invisible. When sufferings become unendurable the cries are no longer heard. The cries, too, fall like rain in summer.

I don’t know how to not become every person I walk by.

Our political divides have become our personal divides.

Can we become other than what we are?

Yeah, I became a successful entrepreneur… Eventually