Critics complained it wasn't opera, it wasn't a musical. You give someone something delicious to eat and they complain because they have no name for it.

The world today is so full of violence, obscenity, war, the failure of political systems. I try to make movies that make people a bit more confident. But that doesn't mean being sugary.

But I never aspired to be a soap opera star. I always wanted to do good dramatic roles on TV and in the movies.

Opera is where a guy gets stabbed in the back, and instead of dying, he sings.

I wouldn't mind seeing opera die. Ever since I was a boy, I regarded opera as a ponderous anachronism, almost the equivalent of smoking

everything from blues to opera!