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

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.

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.

I love you girl…to the moon and back.

There is competition. It’s almost like I’m back in tennis competing in a way. There are usually about twenty composers vying for the number one spot for a big or medium film.

I am still very surprised that I managed to make that film [Close Up]. When I actually look back on that film, I really feel that I was not the director but instead just a member of the audience.

You can get samosas in any pub in England today, pretty much. So, “Gunga Din” has come back.

In an ideal world for me, I would like to go back and forth [between film and theater]. I kind of want to do it all

If I get an idea for a series that I really like, I’m sure I won’t be able to resist coming back and doing it.

Life doesn’t move in a linear fashion. Life makes lefts and rights, and it doubles back.

Every day we encounter situations where we have to make a stand. Looking back, I could have not hand-picked a better song to be my first single.