At the beginning of my career I was going through a really weird phase of dressing in boys clothes. I would only wear one American Apparel T-shirt and shorts and brogues the whole year round. Not the same T-shirt, obviously, but one style of American Apparel T-shirt. I think I was going through a tomboy stage.
Even through 'Get Smart' or 'She's Out of My League,' I have yet to have that instant recognition and at such an early stage, where people totally didn't know my name, but they knew my face immediately.
I'm a rapper... Gaga's a fantastic artist, you know, she paved her way. She's opened her own lane. But I think that I have my own lane. And we never cross. Ever. So, you know, I really don't get the comparison anymore. Our music doesn't sound the same. Our stage presence is not the same. I just can't see the similarities.
Every woman I've had a relationship with has found this maddening; the fact that I will talk about anything on the stage, and reveal all this stuff, and yet when I'm at home, I clam up and won't discuss anything intimate or personal.
I believe that for all of us, there was this one moment in our early life when we started being obsessed about music, somehow feeling how 'big' it is and is what it can give us. For me, this was when I got to be as a 9-year-old on stage, performing in Verdi's Otello in the children's choir.
I knew I wanted to be a singer from the age of five. I've been lucky to be so single-minded - some of my friends still don't know what they want to do, and they're finding it hard. There are home videos of me singing and taking centre stage at family parties when I'm about three.
When I was 16 or 17, I saw Lenny Bruce being taken to jail. They took him off stage because he talked about race.
I'm not at the hoarder stage, but there are two or three storage units here and there. I have things that a lot of people put a lot of heart and soul into, a lot of mental energy. I'm good at keeping those things. When it comes to pop culture, as you move through this fast lane, you wonder where it all goes and how you can hold onto it.
Now one thing I think is really lame, is if you're an artist and you go to a karaoke bar and sing your own song. I like to get up there and sing stuff that I would never sing on stage anywhere else. Like Neil Diamond.
Actually, I failed drama in high school because of nerves. I wasn't able to memorize the words. I had complete stage fright.
I did grow up in a military family but lacked the perspective to grasp the cognitive dissonance carried by most people who serve in the armed forces or the circumstances that push lots of folks into the military. I don't blame G.I. Joe or Rambo for that atmosphere, but they certainly reflected the final stage of a two generation cultural myth.
At Burning Man, the audience is the show: the boundaries between stage and public overlap and melt. Every form of self-expression, every fantasy... everything has a place. It's kind of a utopia, and everyone who sets foot in it is so impressed that they do their best to respect it and keep it alive.
I love being on stage if I'm not on a set. If I'm at home, I'm usually in my office editing or reconstructing my website or whatever it may be. I just love putting creativity into a performance, so if the right script comes along, and I certainly am reading comedies and dramas now, then I'm ready willing and able to give it a shot.
Ultimately, when I go back to the stage, I want to be able to do everything. I want to be able to do music and comedy and all that stuff; that's what all this stuff is leading to.
At this early stage in our evolution, now through our infancy and into our childhood and then, with luck, our growing up, what our species needs most of all, right now, is simply a future.
My father is a university professor so when the schools needed a little kid for their productions I was often the kid they used. The first time I was ever on stage was about 2nd grade.
When I first started doing my comedy act, I just desperately needed material. So I took literally everything I knew how to do on stage with me, which was juggling, magic and banjo and my little comedy routines. I always felt the audience sorta tolerated the serious musical parts while I was doing my comedy.
When 'Twin Peaks' happened the first time, I was a stage actor in Seattle. I was called in for an audition for this pilot, and at that time, it was called 'Northwest Passage,' and nobody knew anything. I thought, 'Oh, okay, Lewis and Clark.' And from that moment, I fell down the rabbit hole.
I spent so many years of my life as a stage actor and when you do all these plays, a lot of really great plays are very politically driven. They deal with deep social issues, and that's the kind of stuff that I love, as an audience member.
On screen, everyone stares at your face, but on stage, you can basically play anybody.
I want there to be another independence referendum at some stage. I want Scotland to be independent, but I wouldn't choose to have it happen because England votes to come out of the E.U.
I'm trying to get better at singing. I just want to be great vocally on stage so I can give fans a real show, like Jazmine Sullivan does.
My personality just steps away, and I'm in direct connection when I'm on stage.
I've always been aware of my health - when you are having to go on stage and perform, you need to be feeling good - but when I was diagnosed with a life-threatening illness, I became really, really conscious of my health.
I've been on stage and been an actor for many years and used different mediums.
I always saw myself as a stage actress, and that was the reason I wanted to act, but very slowly, I've changed.
I adopted this feeling that the stage is my home, so just keep my coat on and not wear anything else.
I'm an actor. Whether I'm on stage, in front of a camera or a microphone, what I do is the same - although with videogames it requires a lot of imagination.
Going out on a stage publicly and not knowing how people are going to react to you - once I experienced that, it made me feel much more comfortable about going into a scene.
I went to see 'Phantom of the Opera' with my grandma and my mom when I was very little. The stage, the voice, the music... Composer Andrew Lloyd Webber has been a massive inspiration to me for some time - the storytelling, that deliciously somber undertone in his music.
My first was in 1994 and it's ten years ago already. It's been ten years and I'm still around. I won a stage again, like I did last year and the year before.
I fell through a stage once. I was doing a truly African dance, and all of a sudden, I hit the ground with my foot and went straight through the stage. I guess they didn't have much money, so the floor was kind of rotting.
Something magic happens when I get to a club or get on stage.
Acting on stage is a living organism you can never pin down, and I believe the audience feeds off that, too.
Every audience has its character; I like America - they love me. I suffer from stage fright, but in America not so much.
I had the fixation that comes with being a Kennedy to be a great man on the big stage.
