Now, when I started my theater, the modus operandi was having the actors stare right into the audience.

One does not devote one's life in art to shock an audience.

I realized that I had to be honest about where I was, where I was coming from, and what I was trying to do.

I'm there to make a kind of theatrical music that is desperately missing in my life. And if other people don't like it, I'm very unhappy, but I can't do anything about that.

My play is the ultimate expression of my feeling of the twilight of Western civilization.

If I wasn't in the theater, I would be a hermit.

So I decided to start writing plays, and went to Yale.

Now, when I started my theater, the modus operandi was having the actors stare right into the audience.

I acted in junior high in the junior high school group, and then when I got into senior high I was, you know, the main actor of the senior high school.

It's true, I don't like the real world.

You know, actually, I went to Yale because I wanted to stay out of the army.

Which implies that the real issue in art is the audience's response. Now I claim that when I make things, I don't care about the audience's response, I'm making them for myself. But I'm making them for myself as audience, because I want to wake myself up.

I was enchanted by the escape into that meticulous world that seemed real yet not... well, it seemed not real, but very detailed and meticulous, bizarre.

As I told you, from the time I was fifteen, I thought the theater was too much involved with actors trying to make the audience love them, being over emotional.

I've been trying to figure out for at least the last 10 years how to force myself into something more risky.

From that time through the time I was a New Dramatist, when I was something like twenty-two, I saw absolutely everything in New York. Absolutely everything.

What really happened was one day I decided to write a new kind of play.

All the dialogue on tape, and we'd play the tape in performance. Then I thought it'd be interesting if the actor's repeated what they heard on the tape, but at a slower speed, so we'd get a web of language.

There is no work of art that has ever been made that is absolutely truthful about life.

Because even at the age of fifteen, I used to go see all the Broadway shows and feel that they were sentimental, that they were pandering to the audience and trying to manipulate the audience. I had no use for practically any of the shows that were hits.

Quite the opposite. I might fall on my face, but I feel born again.

Actors love mental disorders, dialects, and corsets. Give them one of the three and they're happy.

What's fascinating is that when you write a script, it's almost a stream of consciousness. You have an idea that it means something, but you're not always sure what. Then when you get on the set, the actors teach you.

Young actors often don't think of the consequences of doing nudity or sex scenes. They want the role so badly that they agree to be exploited, and then end up embarrassing family, friends, and even strangers.

I've seen many actors go awry by making the wrong choices early on.

Actors are able to trick themselves into treating anything as if it's fantastic. It's a kind of madness really.

David Cronenberg knows what we actors do as artists.

I like doing them and they're ridiculous and the actors can improvise a lot, and they don't have to be really realistic characters that hit a very specific tone as in a feature film. They're really fun, I want to make more of them definitely.

I'm not in the business of becoming famous. And that's the advice I give to younger aspiring actors. Work onstage and do the little roles. In the end it's not important to be seen. It's important to do. There's a lot of disappointment in this business, but my family keeps me grounded.

Actors get pigeonholed very quickly, particularly movie actors. In the theater, one is more used to casting people against type and trusting that their talent and skill will get them through.

Comedians are not usually actors, but imitations of actors.

I was very pleased you know, and I was afraid that I might stick out, but I didn't. My happiest thing about that picture is that I proved that American actors can speak as well and also fit in with an ensemble like that.

I've worked with a lot of really fine actors, both on stage and on screen. The level of their game lifts me up and brings the level of my game up to theirs. Always. It's like a constant upgrade.

I feel like I'm the most well-adjusted character on the show, even though I'm sure the other actors would tell you the same thing about their characters.

There's a constant flow of child actors. It's kind of funny to watch the new crew come through. I think, You poor little things. You're going to have to struggle for a long time.

I'll miss the relationships I have built with these actors. I'll miss the devotion we have to this work. Over this length of time, the tendency is to think it will never end.

After the war, there was no industry. We lost the war. We had our whole city destroyed. No money. No studio. No film. No camera. No equipment. We would shoot in the street. We had no actors. Nothing. But we wanted to do movies. And we did the best movies in the world.

An actors' tribute to me is in his work.

A few nights ago I went to a Hollywood screening of a small independent film made by Sally Kirkland, an old friend of mine who also did terrific job acting in it. There were other actors in it and they were all terrific.

This friend of mine said he was surprised to find that - I don't think it's quite a majority - a bigger percentage of actors are introverts than extroverts. It was a big surprise to him. Now, I know me, and I'll do anything if I'm playing a character. Or anything that's true to the character, anyway. But in real life I'm a little more withdrawn.

Plastic surgery and breast implants are fine for people who want that, if it makes them feel better about who they are. But, it makes these people, actors especially, fantasy figures for a fantasy world. Acting is about being real being honest.

When on the set of a film, you have to play natural for entire scenes in a very unnatural environment. You have to express emotions and interact with other actors and also use your voice.

If you watch the show and the characters don't look at each other while they're talking, the actors probably aren't getting along.

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

My favorite actors when I was a kid were in their '60s. Spencer Tracy, Humphrey Bogart, John Wayne.

I think it's hard to know. Feeling fulfilled, because actors face periods of unemployment, there is nothing worse than being at the top of your game; you have so much to give but do not have the platform to do this.

I usually hang out on the set. I get to know everybody. I have a nice time with the other actors.

But what I did think would be interesting is if we created a fictitious story of our own, and then took these stories that we had collected and assigned them to characters who would be played by actors.

Actors are an insecure breed. It's hard to have your career depend upon other people's opinions of what you do.