Women have always had equal importance onstage, and working with them must have altered my sensibilities. I've never felt sensitive to the whole issue, because being macho has never been a problem with me.
I wouldn't be interested in [nowadays] television simply because I think it goes too fast. Except if something was maybe a play on television or some great television script.
My movies are always being played on television, I'm very well known and all that stuff - I go all over the world, I have access to many things, many people, many places and it's wonderful. But now I'm at a point where...I thought it was time to show some of it, to show some of my feelings about things and what I preferred at the time. I prefer them still but not to the extent I did at the time.
My dad was in the army. World War II. He got his college education from the army. After World War II he became an insurance salesman. Really, I didn't know my dad very well. He and my mother split up after the war. I was raised by my maternal grandmother and grandfather, and by my mother.
All due respect and trying to be as modest as I can be, I am a dancer. But I don't think I would be on 'Dancing with the Stars,' mainly because I would be too shy.
We're charlatans in a way, we're magic people. Part of the behind the scenes stuff is to loosen you up, to make you feel that you are experiencing this. This is my style, I did it in Looking for Richard, too. And I figure, if I can weave it into the actual play and get the audience interested, like the robes going up and down, they'll pay attention long enough to consume it.
I do believe, and I will always believe, that Shakespeare on film is really something that should be tried more often because it is an opportunity to take the humanity that Shakespeare writes into characters and express it.
I used to think of myself as a comedian. I've always admired comedians. Their minds, the way in which they se the world is so striking, the way they juxtapose things, the way they can see humor in people. There's a liberation in that.
Shakespeare is one of the reasons I've stayed an actor. Sometimes I spend full days doing Shakespeare by myself, just for the joy of reading it, saying those words... I do Shakespeare when I am feeling a certain way.
When my mother got home from work, she would take me to the movies. It was her way of getting out, and she would take me with her. I'd go home and act all the parts. It had a tremendous influence on my becoming an actor.
I found that speaking live to people, young people, about what I liked and what had been happening to me was very good for me. I was quite overtaken by success and fame. I was one of those types who responded to it in a negative way. It was not easy.
At this point in my career, I don't have to deal with audition rejections. So I get my rejection from other things. My children can make me feel rejected. They can humble you pretty quick.