I learned early that you’d better know what you’re talking about. You’d better realize that certain issues are going to be so hot – no matter what reason, what logic you apply to it – you’re going to be met with an opposition just because their viewpoint is different, and there’s no way they’re going to accept your reasoning. Furthermore, they’re going to attack you because you will be portrayed as not being credible: “You’re an actor. What do you know?”

You should prepare when you go to a public event to be public. That’s when I will sign autographs. But not when you’re going about your normal business.

I have to be human, of course, to be flattered by attention from the public. How could you not be? But it gets pretty intense when people are going after your clothes, and mobbing you in the streets, and you
have to hide. That’s kind of amusing, and kind of mind-boggling when it happens – you kind of go with it and have fun with it. Then it gets tiring, and then it gets worse when you realize you’re being robbed of
a vital part of your life, which is your privacy. And you also know what’s coming your way is artificial, because those people are reacting to something they saw on the screen, not you as a person.

[on his relationship with Paul Newman] When we made the movies nobody used the word “chemistry”. Nobody used the word “bonding”. It was just: “Get up there and do your job!”