I started playing violin in the 5th grade. They had a program in school where you could get out of class to go play instruments. So I raised my hand, left out of class, me and a bunch of my homeboys, just to get out of class for that day. They asked what instrument you wanted to play and I picked the violin.
If you had asked me back in grade school what I wanted to be when I grew up, I would have said my first choice was an actor, but if I couldn't be that, I'd want to be a superhero.
I hate when I get asked, 'What's it like to be a woman in comics?'
When you are asked if you can do a job, tell 'em, 'Certainly I can!' Then get busy and find out how to do it.
I try to find where the fun is and go there and then get asked if I want to have more fun. That's the way I want my life to go. Follow the fun.
Ralph Fiennes was a pivotal influence on me. He asked me, 'So what is it you want to do?' I very shyly, timidly admitted that I wanted to be an actor. He sighed, and he said, 'Lupita, only be an actor if you feel there is nothing else in the world you want to do - only do it if you feel you cannot live without acting.'
When I was 14, I played in a summer league. One night the chief umpire asked me if I would like to try umpiring. There was a Little League tournament coming up and he needed more umpires than he had.
I remember being at Greenblatt's on Sunset, and some guy just walked straight up to me, and he had some bling on and whatever, and said something about a party down in Malibu and asked if I would jump in his car and go to the party. All I could think was, 'Who are you? I don't know you, and I don't care about how good your car is.'
With each job that you're given an opportunity to do, you're asked to use new parts of yourself and to figure the play out with other tools that you perhaps didn't use with the last show.
I've learned more and more on each show that I've done. I've been blessed and I've gotten to work with some very talented actors - James Gandolfini, Treat Williams. I've kind of always asked for advice and tried to take in as much as I could whenever working with them.
When I was 12, I happened to see a schoolmate playing percussion, and it looked interesting. I asked for lessons, and it felt right.
The sacrifices of friendship were beautiful in her eyes as long as she was not asked to make them.
In England, anybody who was alive remembers an interview between the press and Charles and Diana, right after they became engaged. One of the press asked Charles if he loved her. And he said, 'Oh, well, whatever love means.' Boy, it was a terrible answer.
It's always been fun for me to play a variety of parts, and over the years, I've been lucky with the things I've been asked to do.
I was given a White House - well, you will have to ask the White House that. But I asked to attend the White House briefing because I was, you know, because I wanted to report on the activities there.
I understand that if you set out to be a celebrity, then you asked for it, but all I wanted to be was an actor.
I have the highest regard for Aamirji, and when he asked me to be part of 'Dangal,' I was most happy. Unfortunately, I had to lose the match with Aamirji. This I couldn't do.
If you're an English actor, and you're asked to do an episode - especially the Christmas episode - of 'Downton Abbey,' you can't turn it down. It's like, 'Of course!'
A question I get asked a lot is 'What is it like to play the straight guy all the time?' And I'm totally okay with it.
I get asked to give stuff to my dad. I'm, like, 'I'm not gonna pass your script to him!' You know? My dad's my dad. I'm not his agent.
Somebody asked me earlier if I thought it was really important to tell stories about women's struggles. And I said yes, but at the same time, it's also important to tell stories about women's triumphs, women being slackers, women being criminals, women being heroes.
People have asked me a lot, 'What comes first? The pictures or the story? The story or the picture?' It's hard to describe because often they seem to come at the same time. I'm seeing images while I'm thinking of the story.
My mother carried me for 10 months. I asked her 'Mother, you had an extra month, why you didn't make me a beautiful face?' and mother told me, 'My son, I was busy making your beautiful hands and heart.'
Customer expectations? Nonsense. No customer ever asked for the electric light, the pneumatic tire, the VCR, or the CD. All customer expectations are only what you and your competitor have led him to expect. He knows nothing else.
My dad tells me that he took us to a pantomime when I was very, very small - panto being a sort of English phenomenon. There's traditionally a part of the show where they'll invite kids up on the stage to interact with the show. I was too young to remember this, but my dad says that I was running up onstage before they even asked us.
Years ago, I was asked to come up to do a store signing in Vermont. The short version is the two younger guys who own the store pick me up at the airport and start driving me around Vermont, showing me the sights and the textile mills and the restaurants, and the punchline is there's no store. There is no store!
I'm often asked - and occasionally in an accusatory way - 'Are you atheist?' And it's like, 'You know, the only 'ist' I am is a scientist, all right?' I don't associate with movements. I'm not an 'ism.' I just - I think for myself.
When I went to the University of Texas, my first day of freshman year in 1994, I took a student tour, and I asked about the tower shooting. I was told, 'We're really not supposed to talk about that.' That was the official stance from the university.
I think when I first realized that something interesting had happened was probably in 1994. There was a 25th anniversary of the ARPANET celebration and... somebody asked the question, 'Where did email come from?' I remembered that I had done this little program back in 1971. People looked back and nobody could find anything that predated it.
Somebody once asked me what my theory of life was, and I said, 'Don't try.' That fits the writing, too. I don't try; I just type.
I had one incident where my daughter said that a girl asked if she was a brown person. I said, 'We're black. You have black people, white people, Chinese people, Hispanic people; we're all brought up differently.'
I wrote an article on a new Porsche for 'Automobile Magazine.' I knew the editor, and she asked me to write this article. So I'm more proud of that than anything.
If you had asked me when I was in Yale, I would tell you I never would have thought it would happen because I just didn't think of myself of having the Hollywood look.
In June 1972, I went with friends to see the Rolling Stones at the Los Angeles Forum. After the concert, as we crossed through the parking lot, a guy in a brown Mercedes stopped in the middle of the street and got out. He came up to me and asked if I had ever modeled.
Some time ago, the United States was an English colony. If an Englishman were asked if the United States would be independent, he would have said no, that it would always be an English colony.
I'd never read 'Lord of the Rings' until I was asked to play Gandalf, so I didn't really know it was a frightfully famous book.
