No not pigeon holed me as an actor, or as a character, or as to what I could do - but what I would do... and the fact is the things you don't do are almost as important as as the things that you do.

It takes a lot of energy to teach.

I have a theory about that, if you have to say something, if you have encourage for one second a prospective acting student - he should not go in to acting.

I didn't have any extra money. But I can't say that I had a hard early career.

When I go to where I was getting excellent parts in movies I may have taken a few too soon, too anxious to go back to work and to anxious to make another film and to succeed more.

I work with Sally and I can see Sally doing that. She is very aggressive. Very fun loving and charming... and pushy in a very competitive way and a very healthy way and a very good actress.

But movies as much as anything developed what I thought was right and wrong, what was honorable, what wasn't, what was funny what wasn't... what had some depth to it, what didn't.

I was very lucky in as much as I played a lot of tennis.

Well Sid Pollack was... He was I would say probably, probably the most influential on me.

The next night I got on an airplane, and flew to New York and looked into acting schools. Four or five acting schools. One of which was the Neighborhood Playhouse, which I started at six months there after.

I think is very beneficial to relax yourself so that when you are doing it you are not staggering for lines and your concentration is not on what I am going to say - but the scene itself, the character that you are talking to.

I did two or three plays every summer.

No not pigeon holed me as an actor, or as a character, or as to what I could do - but what I would do... and the fact is the things you don't do are almost as important as as the things that you do.

There is something about New York City that in and of itself is so theatrical hat I use to think... I use to feel when I walked out of my apartment on the way to school or anywhere that I was walking out on stage.

I think that you get something for your acting from almost anything you do.

But it is a hard, it's a hard profession teaching acting.

I have worked with some great directors.

To tell you the truth I am hard put to think of anyone who's career was affected significantly by making all those phone calls and I must be wrong. I must be wrong! Because it has just got to pay off!

But I did make some money doing commercials. I did fourteen in one year.

But it was this tough little character part that I was playing, a very funny little guy that I invented over a weekend, because I realized I was not contributing to the humor of this thing. And I had to do something.

I'm convinced that the place, if you have your druthers, to go to have that experience is New York City.

The career doesn't get any easier. A career stays tough.

And it just made me realize again because I have know it for some time, that you never get comfortable in this. No matter who you are. No matter who... how successful you are.

My favorite actor is Wallace Beery.

I've been a very lucky actor.

I don't think I could be happy as an actor if there was a tyrant on the set.

When I was starting to get noticed as an actor in the 1970s for something other than the third cowboy on the right who ended up dying in every movie or episode, Burt Reynolds was the biggest star in the world.

Most parts that can be played by one actor can equally well be played by another, but not this.

I think, frankly, that I'm a better director than I was an actor.

I knew an actor's career goes up and down and back up again. Your standing in this business can't be your whole identity; otherwise, you're doomed.

I don't think any actor feels comfortable watching themselves in movies. You must be very narcissistic. The problem with your own opinion of yourself is that contrary to the normal spectators, when you watch a film you are in, you only watch yourself.

I don't think there has been any increase in sophistication in the audience. When people are aware of a concept that's easy to understand, and there's an actor who will attract them to the theater and it's a movie that's funny three-quarters of the time, it will be successful.

I never dreamed about being an actor, because that was out of reach. Coming from a small town that was big in farming, and also big in clothing factories, you don't dream about being a professional football player or an actor.

My goal was always to be recognized as a good actor but no one was interested in that, simply because society just wants to warm towards your appearance. This is the great blemish of society.

If you really do want to be an actor who can satisfy himself and his audience, you need to be vulnerable.

To be honest with you, when I got into this I never thought about reviews. I never thought about what people would say about me. I was just a young guy who was excited to become a comedian and an actor and I just wanted to get to do what I got to do.

It was very natural for me to want to disappear into dark theater, I am really very shy. That is something that people never seem to fully grasp because, when you are an actor, you are meant to be an exhibitionist.

I think that I've still not been successful at playing the role of the retired actor, and I'd like to work on that.

And once you cease to be a real person, you stop being a good actor.

When I decided I wanted to be an actor, I said I wanted to work with quality actors and directors.

There are roles I want that my agency might not want me to do because of the subject matter or whatever. Or there are roles that people won't bring to me because they don't think I'll do it. And that is a big strain because an actor wants to act.

Reality is, I'm an actor and an entertainer, and I really wouldn't know what to do with another profession.

I still feel like I'm trying to make it. It's hard to shed the struggling actor thing.

Only a great actor finds the difficulties of the actor's art infinite.

Follow the wisdom of the great actor, James Cagney, you hit your mark, you look the other guy in the eye, and you tell the truth.

I was always a character actor. I just looked like Little Red Riding Hood.

In other words, I wouldn't like to be an actor if I could only be real. I like to get wild, behaviorally wild, and it's crazy to think of any form where it's just one way.

An actor entering through the door, you've got nothing. But if he enters through the window, you've got a situation.

Oh, well, in Los Angeles everybody is an actor, or a producer, or a writer, or a director, or an agent, or... So everybody understands the hours.