My hero is Michelle Williams who I grew close to when we did 'Meek's Cutoff.' She's an extraordinary actor and mom.

When I was a child I wanted to be an actor but I had really bad buckteeth. I didn't want to get braces but my mom said I couldn't be an actor if I didn't get the braces. So I got the braces.

We were poor. But my mom never accepted that. She worked hard to become a residential contractor - got her master's with honors at the University of New Orleans. I used to go to every class with her. Her father was my paternal figure.

My mother worked in factories worked as a domestic worked in a restaurant always had a second job.

I hate this fast growing tendency to chain men to machines in big factories and deprive them of all joy in their efforts - the plan will lead to cheap men and cheap products.

Love is the only sane and satisfactory answer to the problem of human existence.

Character in the long run is the decisive factor in the life of an individual and of nations alike.

There are old heads in the world who cannot help me by their example or advice to live worthily and satisfactorily to myself but I believe that it is in my power to elevate myself this very hour above the common level of my life.

That's not all our crops can do. We are also learning how to transform plants into factories. We can now raise plants that will create enzymes that would otherwise be created in chemical factories.

I was 17 and just learning what high fidelity was what good sound was and learning the mechanics of tape machines. It was a real education going right from the consumer end to the record factory.

I love the work I love being in front of the camera and working with actors and directors and creating something. For me it's like learning everyday.

I think as an actor you're always learning you're always trying to experience more things.

Yes it is a rehearsed show yes it was analogy of going to see a play at the theatre where everything has to be in place and whole things everything being works all works together to get the best effect you know it's more like an actor learning a part.

I guess confidence is the only thing that I take from project to project but I'm always open to learning everybody's style - the director the actor I'm working with.

My advice to an aspiring actor would be to never stop learning or working for what you want. Nothing comes easy ever if you want something you have to work for it. By working for it I mean work on your craft learn from people who have something to teach. It's just like anything else practice makes perfect.

It's mainly about working hard and proving to people you're serious about it and stretching yourself and learning. The mistake a lot of actors make particularly young ones is allowing themselves to feel that they're the finished articles the bee's knees and it's not true.

I started practicing yoga. I started learning some hands-on healing stuff. And I found really good chiropractors really good massage therapists and what I found is I've been able to actually peel off layers of trauma on my body and actually move better now than I did.

There was great leadership in this country at the time of World War II. There was also unrelenting resolve at home in America's factories and on the farms in the cities and the country.

The most dangerous leadership myth is that leaders are born-that there is a genetic factor to leadership. This myth asserts that people simply either have certain charismatic qualities or not. That's nonsense in fact the opposite is true. Leaders are made rather than born.

It's a wonderful profession and it opens lots of doors and I think it's quite right that people can accuse actors and actresses of being dilettante but you learn on every job whatever it is the process moves you on in some way and yeah I want to expand my knowledge of our existence I suppose.

I'm quite ignorant about fashion and I'm colourblind so it's all a tad tricky. My only knowledge of that world comes through Christopher Bailey whom I first met in 2008 when I did a campaign for Burberry that featured musicians artists actors and sportsmen.

If I have enough ego to say I'm a writer a director a producer and an actor I should have the energy and the knowledge to write a scene for this great actor named Henry Fonda and direct him in it and have it work.

I don't know what is better than the work that is given to the actor-to teach the human heart the knowledge of itself.

As an actor you have an accumulated knowledge base. But there's also something about it that every time you really feel like you're doing it for the first time you have no idea whether you're capable of it.