He wants to hear their opinions. As an actor, it was what I always craved. You really want as an actor to be treated as one of the grown-ups. Half the time, you are treated as a demented child who has wandered onto the set.

A lot of actors find it impossible not to ask for the audience's sympathy. They have a need to twinkle.

I think Americans are wonderful film actors - the best in the world - but they are a very contemporary race and they look forward all the time.

Los Angeles is a town where status is all and status is only given to success. Dukes and millionaires and playboys by the dozen may arrive and be glad-handed for a time, but they are unwise if they choose to live there because the town is, perhaps even creditably, committed to recognising only professional success, and nothing else, to be of lasting value. The burdensome obligation imposed on all its inhabitants is therefore to present themselves as successes, because otherwise they forfeit their right to respect in that environment ... There is no place in that town for the "interesting failure" or for anyone who is not determined on a life that will be shaped in a upward-heading curve.

What does she do?"
"She's a producer." Of course, in Los Angeles this doesn't mean much more than "she's a member of the human race.

I never know which is worse: the sorrow when you hit the bird or the shame when you miss it.