"The movie that I always watch before doing just about any project — and certainly before doing this one — is called Nothing But A Man. It’s a classic film. Ivan Dixon played the lead character and it’s just about this black man trying to make his way through the world. But it’s a beautiful, beautiful film, and it breaks my heart every time I watch it. It’s just one of the most extraordinary movies I’ve ever seen. I was introduced to it by a friend of mine; I was doing a play — probably eight or nine years ago — and my friend, Aunjanue Ellis, who is an actress, put me on to it and I had not seen it before. Now I watch it all the time. It’s great – I think it was in the 1960s. Ivan Dixon and Abbey Lincoln -– it just was super. An incredible film."

"I’m going Part Two only — I love Part One, but there’s something about the second film that takes the perfection of the first one and enriches it. Maybe it’s the novelistic detail, the flashback structure. I don’t know any other movie where the flashbacks are so long. I mean, the flashbacks aren’t just interspersed; they are entire long chapters of the movie. Somehow, with the contrast of the two stories unfolding — these two rich stories, the De Niro one and the Pacino one — all of the Shakespearean themes of the Godfather movies become so poignant. Also, it’s probably got the best cast of any American film, ever, down to every last character actor: Lee Strasberg is Hyman Roth; there’s this Fellini actor, Leopoldo Trieste — he’s in scenes with De Niro, and he was in Fellini’s first few films; and people like John Cazale, there’s no one better than him."

"Is it cheating? [Laughs] It’s hard to pick. I wouldn’t necessarily know which. I mean, I love the Goblet of Fire. I don’t know. Maybe the Goblet of Fire. I read those books so quickly when I was a kid, because that whole world was so, like… it took me out of my reality. And I just love magic and I loved that whole world, the creatures, and just how you felt so friendly with all the characters. The way they translated that into movies, I thought was genius. You know when they take a book, and they make it a movie, and you hope that it’s gonna be everything that you hope for and more? To me they just succeeded. I don’t know, I just love them so much. Every time I’m sick I’ll watch a marathon of them and I can repeat all the words."

"Now for a more contemporary movie. What a phenomenal third act. What a triumphant moment at the end. There’s so much build up — some movies just don’t pay off the way they should. The performances were beyond incredible, but to have that triumphant moment be as strong as it really was, you just don’t find it. And so simple too. The story didn’t have to be about explosions and car crashes to really hit as hard as it did. It didn’t need the Hollywood spin on it — not that that story could have ever been told with a Hollywood spin on it — but that this simple story about this relationship could have as big an impact as anything I’ve seen is incredible. JK Simmons is so good; he doesn’t have any tells, so you only get clues to where it’s going. But he’s so good at playing that asshole."

"I would say that one of the most profound memories was when my mother – who was film fanatic and loved thrillers – took me to see Rosemary’s Baby when I was nine years old. The film had a huge impact on me and, of course, scared the shit out me! I certainly wouldn’t take my 10-year-old to see Rosemary’s Baby. “It is a masterpiece in terms of the way it uses the language of movies and it directed me towards Hitchcock and that kind of visual storytelling, and thrillers in general – or maybe more psychological thrillers. So that was my first and most memorable movie. It was the psychological fear and oddness, the oddness of the characters; I remember I didn’t even understand it all when I first saw it. Visually there were so many things that I hadn’t seen before that have stayed with me."

"This was spoofing these airport movies that were big in the ’70s. When you watch, there are so many quotable scenes, but one is [where] there’s a little boy who comes up to the cockpit of the airplane, and Peter Graves is the pilot, and he goes, “You ever been in a cockpit before, Joey?” And he goes, “No, sir, I’ve never been on a plane before.” He goes, “You ever seen a grown man naked?” And the kid acts perfectly, acts like he didn’t hear what he said, really, and then the questions get crazier. He’s like, “Joey, you ever been in a Turkish prison?” Kareem Abdul-Jabbar is the copilot. It is just so well-acted. There are so many jokes – it is jam-packed with jokes. You won’t ever forget Airplane!; [it’s] one of the best comedies I’ve ever seen in my life."