“I was in a movie with Marlon Brando. Now, I didn't have any scenes wit...” — Laurence Fishburne Quote

I was in a movie with Marlon Brando. Now, I didn't have any scenes with Marlon Brando, but I had scenes with Martin Sheen and was around Dennis Hopper, who was a child actor in the studio system and was enamored of James Dean, as was Martin, and they were all sort of disciples of Brando.

I always want to read the script and know everything and at least understand the context of the world that you're in and why you're there and all that stuff. It's good to know something. I like to know, but I've never been one of these, 'Just show me my stuff,' no, I like to know what the whole picture is so I can understand how I fit into it.

'The Fugitive Kind,' 'Rope,' 'Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?' - I watched all these as a way of reminding myself that you can do a movie based on a play. You can do a movie that stays in one place for a long stretch.

The 50s are the age of elegance. That's kind of my intention when I get dressed: casual elegance.

I certainly have never been an actor who can play the Everyman guy - or, I don't tend to get those parts. I've tended to play eccentrics. I've played a lot of villains, of course.

Any actor I admire and enjoy working with - Sergi Lopez as the bad guy in 'Pan's Labyrinth,' or the little girl who played young Mako in 'Pacific Rim,' it makes no difference - I like actors with a very strong centre.

Oliver Stone's strategy is to unnerve the actors so as to make them alert and alive.

T.V.'s weird because it's both the greatest gig as an actor potentially because it can be all this work for all this time, but there are so many question marks at every stage of the process.