"Family, generations, hero worship, a classic American landscape and anti hero… Paul Newman, a lead with no arc. A bastard, an ass, a great character who never wavers in his ornery and despicable ways, yet I loved him. Great example of how brilliant drama can happen even if the lead character never changes. P.S. – Patricia Neal, “You want an orange? I’ll peel it for ya.” Wow."

"And then kind of parallel to [Nothing but a Man] — number three would probably be my most favorite romance, Paris Blues. Sidney Poitier, Diahann Carroll, Paul Newman, and Joanne Woodward. I love it. The dialogue in that film is some of the best I’ve ever seen. And Sidney Poitier, I think, gives one of his best performances. And it’s so, so sexy, that movie."

"Y’know, it takes a real pro to grasp the ins and outs of something like racing. It takes time, and even more than that? Passion. You gotta put in the work. From what I understand, with Paul Newman? Apparently racing wasn’t his day job, but he had a real passion for being out on a track, digging in and getting up close to his competition, lap after lap. It wasn’t about winning, it was about how much he just loved doing it, and how he’d do it every chance he got, no matter what anyone else said. You gotta respect that! THAT’S inspiring!"

"Wings of Desire, by Wim Wenders. The guy who wrote the screenplay, Peter Handke, is a playwright in Germany, and I was very much a part of reading the avant garde writers, be it plays or novels. I loved his writing, it was so strong and so sharp, and when the film came out, I just loved it. Everything about it was marvelous. Bruno Ganz was so brilliant. He’s brilliant most of the time. On our side of the ocean, let’s say, he was one of our stars, like Redford and Paul Newman and Brando were on that side. I had a few European actors where I went, “They’re so fantastic.”"

"Once again, another movie that I don’t think people could watch these days because they have to sit too long and listen to people talk. This is a brilliant movie, and Paul Newman, out of everything he ever did, this was his greatest performance. When he got the Academy Award for The Color of Money, I think it was a make-up job [by the Academy]. Jack Warden was terrific in it, as well as James Mason. I hated [James Mason] in that movie more than any character I’ve ever hated as the defense attorney for the Catholic Church. He was really mean–cold, really. All the actors are terrific, too."

"The film that sort of made me want to be an actor was Cool Hand Luke. I watched it one Sunday when I skipped church, and I was home sick, and it was on TBS, and I was about 12 or 13 years old. I had never seen a man cry like that. [SPOILER AHEAD] When Paul Newman finds out his mother’s died and he sits on the bed and plays “Plastic Jesus” on the banjo [END SPOILER], I was so fascinated by this masculine tough guy getting emotional, and that sort of started my interest in acting. Figuring out how one gets to that place, and why. And both he and Steve McQueen were the two people I first connected to or looked up to as actors."