Keeping a consistent band going is a bit like getting the Aston Martin out the garage - you have to run it every now and then!
I was very serene, and I still am, until I start talking in another voice, then suddenly I have a lot of volume and I'm frantic. But I didn't want to be one of those people who's always talking in accents in real life, so I started doing sketch comedy.
The good people look for challenges. When teaching becomes a prestigious profession, then you'll get good people.
If we all understood we can learn from both older and younger people, then we'd have a better world.
In your 20s and 30s, everything is possible. But then, sooner than you think, men walk past you in the street and don't look twice at you unless you're wearing a fabulous outfit.
If fame belonged to me, I could not escape her; if she did not, the longest day would pass me on the chase, and the approbation of my dog would forsake me then. My barefoot rank is better.
I was in a band till I was about 17; then I went to television, and I spent seven years doing that. When I came to Seattle, I started to audition for things. The passion's always there, and that's what's been the hard thing: to fit that passion into a normal life. You can't do it. You can't have a normal life and pursue this dream.
Anything you can do to express yourself is a form of art. That's why I love my craft so much. I always wanted to play other artists. If I can't play an instrument, then I want to play a character that can. There is an artist behind everything, and I think that's beautiful.
It's not how pretty you are or how talented you are. It's that if these five people on this day in this room like you, then you get a job.
In the fall of 1968, I became attractive to women. One day I was an ignored schlub in the street, then suddenly all these good-looking women were interested in me.
When I started windsurfing, it was a hobby, and I enjoyed the lifestyle. Then it became an Olympic dream. Now I've achieved that with a medal. I just feel so lucky.
I prefer younger men. In some ways, they are much more open to a woman being stronger and independent then some of the men my age.
I'm guilty of being fascinated by gadgets and toys and technology, but any penny that I spend, I try to make it be a part of what I do for a living. Because then you are forwarding. You are forwarding that art, forwarding that career ahead.
Part of the desire to live in a post-racial world includes the desire not to have to talk about racism, which includes a false perception that if you are talking about race, then you're perpetuating the notion of race. I reject that.
I don't wash my hair very often. Once a week if I can. Because the more you wash it, you end up stripping out the natural oils. What I like to do is just rinse out the products that I've used during the week and then put leave-in conditioner in and let it dry naturally.
I signed schoolboy forms for Watford when I was 12, but then my parents got divorced, and I never kicked a ball for three years. I rebelled, I left home, but getting back into football sorted me out. It was the second chance I needed.
While I'd like to make movies that are uplifting, there's always that part of you that goes, 'I want to play the evil guy because it's not me.' So anything that is not me is a challenge, and if I rise to the challenge, then I've kind of proved myself.
I think the process of 'SNL' is still pretty formal. You make an audition tape, your agent sends it in, they watch people's tapes, and then they invite people to perform at a comedy club in Los Angeles or New York. But I don't know how much actual scouting they do online.
What I hated then - and hate now - is the way that people say to girls like me who get pregnant young that it ruins your life. Having a child doesn't ruin your life - having a child is a blessing.
I was amazed by how much you have to think about as a director. As an actor, you don't have to think about much at all, as it turns out. It's very easy. And then when you step into the director's role, there's this whole universe of stuff that you have to pay attention to that's amazing to me.
I did Alan Ball's 'Five Women Wearing the Same Dress,' and then he put me in 'American Beauty.' Everything started to happen from all the years I put into the theater in New York City, and working, and having great parents who supported me through that.
I consider myself something of a self-taught anthropologist. I try not to talk about something unless it's something I love. But if it's something that really annoys me, I fixate on it, learn something about it and then, when I'm onstage, it comes out.
As an actor, I'm familiar with having bursts of energy, where you're giving things a try, and then you have down time.
For the first two weeks of filming, I remember bristling at some of the occurrences on the set, none of which directly involved me. Then I surrendered to the environment, to Michael's method, and became much happier, even though no one knew what to expect.
My father and his eight siblings grew up in the kind of poverty that Americans don't like to talk about unless a natural disaster like Hurricane Katrina strikes, and then the conversation only lasts as long as the news cycle. His family squatted in shacks. The children scavenged for food.
I think people assume that because I talk the way that I talk that I grew up with money, and then I've had to say, 'No, I grew up poor.' And then I was like, 'Why do I have to play this game where the only black experience that's authentic is the one where you grew up in poverty?' I mean, it's ridiculous.
The day after my high school graduation in 1952, I headed to Alaska. I was 17. I started out greasing equipment, then became a heavy-crane operator. I made and saved good money there for two years.
As with most phobias, the fear of flying does make some sense, but if ever there was a fear worth quashing then this is it. After all, life is short, and there's a great big world to explore out there.
If you get somebody laughing - and then stick in a point about something important - they'll remember it.
I really love Scrabble. I played it with my mother growing up. We took it everywhere with us. We didn't know then about the two letter words. Who knew that AA, or more controversially, ZA, or QI were words? We were a games family generally.
When you come up with a theory, you fall in love with the beauty the simplicity and elegance of it. But then you have to get a sheet of paper and pencil and crack out all the details. Hundreds and hundreds of pages. Because you have to prove it.
If I'm gonna stay in this world of comedy, then it has to be a really special character to me in a really smart piece of material.
If the nation is not capable of preserving itself and reproducing, if it loses it vital bearings and ideals, then it doesn't need foreign enemies - it will fall apart on its own.
'Sinister' is the first score I've done in which there's no orchestra in it whatsoever. There are traditional instruments I sampled, then manipulated, so you don't even recognize the source anymore.
Usually when I write a song, I'll write the music and then kind of fit some words to it.
I've been doing voices as long as I can remember. When I was little I could pick up on sounds, and then I discovered you could distort what you hear and make people laugh or disrupt a class.
