Special effects are characters. Special effects are essential elements. Just because you can`t see them doesn`t mean they aren`t there.

Mine were informal mentors. They were all in my working life.

I think everyone is very surprised at how `Matrix` has become the pop culture phenomenon that it is.

I certainly believe that being in contact with one`s spirit and nurturing one`s spirit is as important as nurturing one`s body and mind. We are three dimensional beings: body, mind, spirit.

I think of myself as being a relatively intelligent man who is open to a lot of different things and I think that questioning our purpose in life and the meaning of existence is something that we all go through at some point.

It`s funny, a lot of people think I take myself seriously because I come off so serious sometimes. But it`s not that I take myself seriously, I take what I do seriously. I came up around people who took acting seriously, who cared about acting, cared about the theater and, in the `70s, made movies that said something that mattered. I came up with those people, and I was a kid. Their ethos and credo became mine.

You know, whatever happens between the two of us that`s created when we come together as actors is not something I think we can explain.

[On why he didn`t read the complete play of "Othello" before acting in the film version in which more than half of the dialogue was cut:] "Why should I read all those words that I`m not going to get to say?"

"I don`t believe in acting teachers for me."

"I play characters. I don`t think I really have a persona per se. I don`t play the same guy every time. I show up, you don`t know what I`m gonna do. I like it that way. I`ve intentionally tried to do it that way. I think that`s what`s interesting."

"I`ve played a lot of bad guys, `cause that was the only work I could get. People saw my face and went `oooh`."

"For the last six months people have been coming up to me and saying, `I loved you in Pulp Fiction, Mr. Jackson.`" [1996]