I've worked with Steven Spielberg three times. I'm proud to say that I'm one of those actors that continues to get hired by the same directors.
Well, you don't make any demands to Steven Spielberg.
It's just such an honor to say that I was in something by Steven Spielberg. I feel so blessed I got to meet such great people, and I got to go to a beautiful place, Vancouver, and I had a great time.
Hardly any filmmakers can just make anything they want. Obviously, there are some exceptions, like Steven Spielberg, but he has that mainstream mentality and the kinds of films he loves to make are the kind that appeal to this big, mass audience.
I've always got stuff in my head in case I meet somebody like Steven Spielberg or someone like that, where I can hopefully say something to them that nobody else has ever said and get a laugh out of them.
I'm not surprised that Spielberg was able to capture the heroism of Schindler; so many of his movies are about the better part of mankind.
Spielberg was very young and starting up when we did Sugarland Express and I loved that, but the main thing was that I really loved his talent.
I'm a humorist. A guy like Paul Simon just makes my life so much simpler. When I was there, he had a hearing against hate. Steven Spielberg came and testified against hate. Paul Simon said hate was bad. Orrin Hatch was there, and he was against hate too. Everyone was opposed to hate. Is this really a wonderful way to spend our tax dollars, to have these men drone away about how against hate they are?
[Spielberg] surrounds himself with great crew members who are at the top of their game and know their stuff. He motivates us by liking what we do, and he doesn't get paralyzed by the process or by new ideas. He embraces them and uses them.
I worked with Steven Spielberg on Amistad. . . he seemed so very secure in himself that he let me do things.
I like Soderbergh, Spielberg, Lucas. There's a lot of talented guys out there obviously, and if you're a fan of films, you have to look at that stuff and learn from them.
Occasionally I do movies with other directors. I did 'The Diving Bell and the Butterfly' for Julian Schnabel. I did a movie with Jim Brooks ('How Do You Know'). I did a movie with Judd Apatow ('Funny People'). So I do get a chance to work with other people, which is always enjoyable, always pleasant. But still, Steven [Spielberg] makes the types of movies that I'm interested in as well.
A large part of the people in Hollywood are sheep - and I don't say that unkindly, I say that politically - if Spielberg and Streisand and Geffen and the others were Republicans tomorrow, you would see a shortage of paper to try and change registrations.
I'd love to go to school and have a normal life, but I don't see any professor at Yale being able to teach me more than Steven Spielberg.
I enjoyed being at Jurassic Park, with Jeff Goldblum and Sir Richard Attenborough. It's funny, because Steven Spielberg would actually operate the camera sometimes. He'd consider the camera, and he'd be kind of looking at me. He actually shot a few of the things that I'm in, in that lab, with that long ash dangling off that cigarette. Hogging that fake cigarette. Because I had quit smoking, and he wanted to make sure I didn't go back, so he got me the worst-tasting fake cigarettes ever.
[I watch] Fincher, Spielberg, Cameron, McTiernan. Just people who are good at staging action. I like to know where I am. I don't like the kind of cutting where you don't know where you are.
Steven Spielberg and I have tremendous amounts of money.
Sitting at the table during Color Purple and looking up and suddenly realizing I was acting in front of Steven Spielberg, was pretty cool. It was pretty good.
I spent time on set in New York and Berlin sitting next to Steven Spielberg while he worked, which was the biggest thrill of my life.
Spielberg knows his craft so well, he can also improvise, and that is a lot of fun.
