There was a certain moment. I was about 61 – two, three or four, and I got a script. And I sent it back to the producer saying – “I don’t wanna do it. The part’s too small.” And he sent it back to me, he said, “You shouldn’t read the lover. You should read the father.
Do you know that the harder thing to do and the right thing to do are usually the same thing? Nothing that has meaning is easy,”Easy” doesn’t enter into grown-up life.
You’ve got to be flexible. Directors do a massive amount of planning and homework, and if after all that your director decides to throw it all out of the window and shoot spontaneously, then you must follow his lead.
When it comes to politics, I believe you have to cut the cake so that everybody gets a piece, but at the same time, you have to keep in mind that somebody has to make the cake.
It’s much harder to act in a bad film than in a good one. A terrible script makes for very difficult acting. You can win an Academy Award for some of the easiest acting in your career, made possible by a brilliant script.
People say to me, why did you do those films, and I say, for money. It wasn’t for diamond rings or kidney shaped swimming pools in Beverly Hills, it was in order to improve the lot of everyone around me.
