You do get very tired sometimes, when you're sitting around for hours in movies. You get depleted.
Playing a character is an illusion, and I feel that when you know too much about a person, possibly part of that illusion is disrupted.
In America most everybody who's Italian is half Italian. Except me. I'm all Italian. I'm mostly Sicilian, and I have a little bit of Neapolitan in me. You get your full dose with me.
Most everybody who's Italian is half Italian. Except me. I'm all Italian. I'm mostly Sicilian, and I have a little bit of Neapolitan in me. You get your full dose with me.
I like, for instance, 'Serpico.' I enjoyed playing Serpico because Frank Serpico was there. He existed. He was a real life person and I could - I could embody him. I could, you know, I could work and get to know him and have him help me with the text, the script and become him. It's almost like a painter having a model to become.
It surprised me, the feeling I got when I won the Oscar for 'Scent of a Woman.' It was a new feeling. I'd never felt it. I don't see my Oscar much now. But when I first got it, there was a feeling for weeks afterward that I guess is akin to winning a gold medal in the Olympics.
I've often said there's two kinds of actors. There's a more gregarious type and the shy type.
I used to wear disguises, like hats and false beards, just to walk around and avoid attention.
I've never liked the recognition, the questions, the publicity. I have often felt like running away and hiding.
That's where humour lives for me. In the body. The Steve Martin kind of stuff or Jim Carrey, that's what I like. I've always felt that's what I would like to do.
Jamie Foxx does a good rendition of me. It's a real gift, mimicry of that kind, the tonal thing. It's sort of like having a talent for playing an instrument.
Doing Shakespeare once is not fair to the play. I have been in Shakespeare plays when it's not until the last two or three performances when I even understand certain things. In the old days star actors would travel the world doing the same parts over and over again.
My weaknesses... I wish I could come up with something. I'd probably have the same pause if you asked me what my strengths are. Maybe they're the same thing.
I'm an actor, not a star. Stars are people who live in Hollywood and have heart-shaped swimming pools.
There has been a lot of self-doubt and unwelcome events in my life.
Did you know I started out as a stand-up comic? People don't believe me when I tell them. That's how I saw myself, in comedy.
I'm so shy now I wear sunglasses everywhere I go.
The problem with me is, I guess, the way I express myself, you have to be with me 50 years before you can get a sense of what I'm talking about.
My grandmother always came to my shows. She was always concerned about the way I dressed - even later on, when I was well known and I supported her.
