I know some really great actors who are pretty judgmental people, pretty critical people. But they're great actors. When they're acting, that's the craft.

I think directors should be confident in their leadership capabilities. I think directors should be confident in what they want to do.

You have to understand that crew members make movies so they're seeing a lot of actors all the time in their career acting.

I didn't have any idea that I would be able to have a career in film.

It's a question of dropping the armor and getting up and doing the work you want to do. And film at first is frightening because you are like, 'What's that camera doing?' But then it becomes family and therefore a really wonderful experience.

The reason it was so bruising when someone said I was from a rich family is that, like many of us, I'm deeply invested - probably overly so - in the myth of my own self-creation. I like to believe that I got where I am, such as it is, by working hard and charting my own course.

In 1949, when I was 2, my family moved from Yonkers, NY, to a development of brick houses in Elmont, a Long Island suburb of New York City. What I remember most about the house was the glider on our porch. I used to sit there evenings close to my father, Victor, as he talked about the moon and the stars. He taught me to dream big.

Thanks to football my family are able to live well.