I felt unworthy to play Jesus. I just accepted the responsibility and said, 'What actor wouldn't want to play this role?'

I still put my pants on the same way. I still walk on my pool twice a day.

I know we didn't make an anti-Semitic film. This is what the Gospels are. And it's none of my business what other people think of me.

Everyone was thinking it was going to be a bust. I felt redeemed.

A woman in Mexico wanted me to heal her. But I can't heal anybody. I just put my hand on her and said, 'Thank you for seeing the film.'

My faith doesn't go over real well in Hollywood.

I felt unworthy to play Jesus. I just accepted the responsibility and said, 'What actor wouldn't want to play this role?'

Anything that I undergo, I look at as redemptive suffering.

Conversion is a daily thing.

Every day I'm trying to be more humble and how do you do that? I guess, every day, we have mass. Every day, I pray the rosary. That's what I do.

I also hope that I am occasionally involved in projects that touch other people in ways that make their lives a little better, more interesting for the moment that makes them think.

I always believed in God, I would go to mass most of the time, but I had no idea of the calling to holiness.

I always look for reality. I look for plain truthful roles.

I just try to be the best Catholic.

I'm a craftsman. I'm an actor.

No, the people standing before Christ and Pilate during the judgment scene do not condemn an entire race for the death of Christ anymore than the actions of Mussolini condemn all Italians, or the heinous crimes of Stalin condemn all Russians.

The point I'm trying to make is that you go to church on Sunday. But the real Christ is out there in your life every day, whether it be the guy you help on the street, how you live your life, and your countenance that makes people want to be you.

We all have a cross to carry. I have to carry my own cross. If we don't carry our crosses, we are going to be crushed under the weight of it.

We are all culpable in the death of Christ. My sins, your sins put Him on that cross.

You know, my point in being an actor is to get people to believe that this is not about me, but something else.

Christ died for the truth.

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.

I didn't want to be an actor.

I'm always looking, as an actor, for activities. I think it's far more interesting to watch what people do than what they say. You always want to watch behavior, because the dialogue as written by our illustrious leaders is great. Eminently playable.