As an actor, whatever I get the opportunity to do, if it has a good story then I'm in. I thought 'Dead End' had a great story; 'Nightmare on Elm Street,' of course, was probably the first real horror film I was in.
I get antsy if a year goes by without doing a play. I don't go to the gym, so this is my way of trying to live longer.
When I came out of high school, my objective in life was to get a job selling used cars, but after trying for two weeks, nobody would hire me.
The big moment for me was making 'All the President's Men'. It was not about Watergate or President Nixon. I wanted to focus on something I thought not many people knew about: How do journalists get the story?
On stage you can get away with a lot more in the sense of emotion and truthfulness. But the camera is the eye of God. It sees everything.
That's what 'Star Trek' was: We don't know how to make an ideal society, but we're going to portray that, and then we're going to work backward. I think that's why science fiction - despite the dystopian parts - comes out of this super ideal that, eventually, we will get to some better place where we actually live up to our ideals.
If I had to go back to something, I would go back to the 'Victory Tour' of the Jacksons, because I love me some Michael Jackson. I'd get my one glove, and my high water pants on, and my sparkly socks and black loafers.
All I want to do really is get married and be a matriarch.
I try not to put pressure on filmmakers to come up with a big scare at the beginning. I think that helps let the audience settle in and get to know the people they're about to spend 90 minutes with. Once the scarier stuff happens, it's scarier because of that.
If I pleaded guilty to a mistake while I was home secretary, it wasn't that I didn't get tough - my God, I put immigration and security officials on French soil for the first time.
I get a certain feeling when I go to Lambeau field in Green Bay. Soldier field in Chicago is special to me. Those are the places that I really like. The stadiums.
I feel reviewers are tougher on comedies in general. They don't take them seriously, and the ones that get great reviews are not necessarily the ones that I like.
When I'm not working, I spend a lot of time on my hair. When it's time for my hair to get some rest, I either wear it in a ponytail, bun or my favorite 'milkmaid' braid.
When I get real excited, my muscles go into spasm, so they just shake.
Remember that nobody will ever get ahead of you as long as he is kicking you in the seat of the pants.
I had a real yearning to make use of the opportunities I had at school. When I heard about the gap year of teaching English at a Tibetan monastery, I knew I had to do something about it really quickly, otherwise it was going to get allocated.
It's amazing to me that we live in such a wonderful country where anyone can have a problem in life and get up, dust themselves off and start all over again.
In my own life, I think legends of supernatural, mythic things are really just a manifestation of the collective unconscious. So I don't really get freaked out. I mean certainly, you read about things people did to each other in the pursuit of some mystical or occult goal, and it's horrifying. But that's just human nature.
You can't go looking for another one of those franchises. You only ever get one of those. You get 'Stars Wars'; you get 'Indiana Jones' or get 'The Matrix.' I've had my franchise.
As Faulkner says, all of us have the capacity in us for great good and for great evil, for love but also for hate. I wanted to write those kinds of complex character in a fantasy, and not just have all the good people get together to fight the bad guy.
If someone's a cartoon villain, you can dismiss them, but if they behave despicably but you kind of like them, they really get under your skin.
My favorite workouts are the ones that don't feel like I'm working out! So, dance is a big one. Another is any kind of isolated moves, like ballet moves. Anything that works the glutes and legs - sign me up! And I like to blast the music. I have to get lost in the music. That helps.
As someone with a novelistic background, I just didn't have much interest in creating stories by committee. I don't think you necessarily get the best story through that approach.
Sometimes I wake up and stretch and do 20 minutes on the treadmill, or anything to just break a sweat. And then I have the weekends where I can get out and play nine holes and maybe go to the gym.
Hopefully, as I get older in the business, I make my choices more accurately, and I perhaps know from either the script or the first meeting that it isn't going to work.
I'm here to get the story on to the page. It would be good to catch your attention, and I have to make you want to read on, and I suppose I prefer you don't actually think about the 'how' at all - the writing technique, the 'style', or even who it is that's putting this together.
Real practice means working on stuff you're not good at. Real practice is about butting your head against the wall repeatedly until you get it right.
I guess you could say I'm an addict - an adrenalin addict - I get great excitement and stimulation from doing stuff in public, even though I'm nervous and I have very bad stage fright.
As a person, I am someone who wants to give my the best in every take. I wouldn't say it was easy for me to get into the industry because I come from a background where no one has been in films. But I do believe if you work hard, you will get noticed. Modeling gave me that courage to stand in front of the camera.
It's hard to get people to empathize with the poor. You can get some people to sympathize with the poor, but to empathize is actually very hard, because most people are not poor. I realized that scarcity gives you a thread.
When I read period material - and it ain't on Google - I am always alert for that one incredible detail. I'll read a whole book and get three words out of it, but they'll be three really good words.
It was the part of Gambian culture where they give each other advice a lot, how they're always comparing things in order to get a message across... that really influenced the way I write.
Normally I sleep in until 7, and most days, I go right into the office. On Tuesdays, though, I stay home and do work. I need a day when I'm not in meeting after meeting. You need time to try to get into your head again and see what's next.
I didn't get my first car until I was 22. It was a BMW 1602 and now I've got it back I'm waiting to restore it.
I guess guys who play on national TV get a lot of publicity.
Because I'm the author of my screenplays I know what I'm looking for. It's true that I can be stubborn in demanding that I get what I want, but it's also a question of working with patience and love.
