I think it's good to have an old fashioned musical as well as new musicals. There's a lot of room for different shows.
I get out of the taxi and it's probably the only city which in reality looks better than on the postcards, New York.
When I came for the first time to the United States, visiting, I was absolutely fascinated by New York.
Well, I wouldn't say that this experience had any influence on my decision to do this film about Andy, because Andy was apolitical. Andy was never political.
So, thanks God, our films, our first films were suddenly being appreciated by the Western media; especially France was very good, and Switzerland was very good.
You really see life around the principals to be as important as the main, principal actors. That's what cinéma vérité taught me - that it's not a question of having a main character, a great actor, and the rest is unimportant. Every detail, every face in the crowd is important.
I lived long enough in a society where freedom of speech was nonexistent, and I know what kind of misery that creates - starting with the fact that life becomes very boring for people who just try to survive, and are quiet, and try not to buck the system. And, of course, it can be devastating for people who try to speak against it.
When I first broke into the acting industry, I taught spinning classes to support myself.
The language of art is powerful to those who understand it, and puzzling to those who do not. What we do know is that here was the modern human mind at work, spinning symbolism and abstraction in a way that only Homo sapiens is capable of doing.
There is nothing more basic to our democracy than the right to participate in electing our political leaders.
As Herman Melville wrote of that seagoing monster of a man Captain Ahab, “All mortal greatness is but disease.