mifunetoshiro:

Akira Kurosawa taught me practically everything I know, and it was he who first introduced me to myself as an actor. He has this quality, this ability to bring things out of you that you never knew were there. It is enormously difficult work, but each picture with him is a revelation. When you see his films, you find them full realizations of ideas, of emotions, of a philosophy which surprises with its strength, even shocks with its power. You had not expected to be so moved, to find within your own self this depth of understanding.

— Toshirō Mifune