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I've come to this conclusion: What makes a great actor is great need. A huge need of acting.

The wonderful thing about acting is that you can use all of your talents and interests in your work.

I think when I first started acting there were different people who I thought, 'I want that person's career or that person's career.' And as time has gone on, it's become really clear to me what is important to me; getting the best roles, the roles that I feel are challenging and scary and that I haven't done yet.

There are two main jobs in acting - the first one is to be a good actor, and the second one is to convince everyone that you're a good actor.

The main thing in acting is honesty, to feel the humanity and get to the essence of the character. You can't put anything into a character that you haven't got within you.

To be a great actor, you really don't need to go to acting school or learn dance classes or work on your body. You have to be intelligent. You have to draw on a lot of emotions that you go through in life that you can tap into once you work on a set.

Being able to do lead roles in pictures or onstage or whatever it is that you're doing in acting is obviously what you strive for because you want to better yourself as an actor and you want to better yourself as a person as well. But that does come with a lot of responsibility and a great deal of weight.

Being an actor really, really strengthens me as a director. There's just a certain type of understanding that comes from having been there and knowing how much is really being asked of actors that helps me.

The most important thing in acting is honesty. If you can fake that, you've got it made.