[on the interview with
Cecil B. DeMille that led to his being cast in DeMille's final film] He was disappointed in my stature. He wanted me for the part of Joshua, the stonecutter, in
द टेन कमांडमेंट्स (1956). He had studied me for months and knew more about me than I knew about myself. I was so used to being rushed through interviews that I stumbled over my words for the first fifteen minutes to get out everything I wanted to say. An hour and a half later I was still in there with him. A burning desire to play Joshua and a new enthusiasm for acting actually filled me. Finally, I told him that by the time he was ready to shoot, I would build up my body by scaling it down from one hundred eighty-five pounds to the proportions he wanted by weight lifting and I would be the best Joshua he could find.