I don't really have a favorite pop artist - I just listen to some pop songs here and there. Mostly, though, it's Beyonce and show tunes.
I love TV, don't get me wrong. But with film, you're just banging out this one product, and you're not waiting on another script. You have your script. It's great in that way. It's as close to theater as you can get.
I love the pigeons. I just raise them, period, and feed them. Pigeons go away, and they always come back. You get a touch of freedom, and then they are free to come back to you. I love the idea of pigeons.
I want what's mine. I see other actors who are doing very interesting roles, and I just want to continue to do things that are interesting, and things that people will go see in theaters.
The Tour de France is a wicked sport in the way that it's not just man against man or woman against woman; it's not flesh against flesh. It's flesh against machine.
I think you sort of shed skins as you go along in life. You get into your 40s, and you feel like, 'OK, no more pretending.' You get to just be who you are.
In August of 2011, Steve Jobs, the tech icon who disrupted a string of traditional industries, called me and told me he thought he'd figured out a way to revolutionize TV. He invited me to come see it at Apple in a few months, but he died just six weeks later, and that meeting never came to pass.
Offers come all the time, but I'm pretty particular. I really have to be wowed by a character I encounter in a script, or a storyline. I really do need to feel inspiration, otherwise I'm just happy planting perennials and making goat cheese.
As a writer, I was shaped by a desire to write for black people. That things were not being represented. That was my motivating force. That it has become what it has become is shocking to me. I just wanted to be able to take care of my kids.
I was just a kid and I didn't have a dad. That's hard, because when you're a kid, you blame yourself for everything. And I blamed myself for him not being around, for my parents not being together.
If I did the structure and had this thing about a straight character, I would never have a sex scene to prove that he's heterosexual. If I have a gay character in a movie, I need to have a sex scene in it - just to prove that he's gay?
Like everyone else in this world, I have had struggles. There's disappointment and obstacles in everybody's life. I feel like I was writing 'Second Chance' not just for myself, but also for the people who have struggled.
I really hate the creature film convention that says you have to wait until the end to see the monster. One hour and all you've seen is just the tip of the creature's tail.
I do my best stuff midmorning and superlate at night, from 1 to 5 in the morning. Some people don't need sleep. I actually do need sleep. I just sleep all the time. I'll catch naps in the afternoon, or I'll take a 20-minute snooze in the office - just all the time. Our business is 24 hours. Our guys in Europe come online at midnight.
As long as we decline to allow sick, uninsured people to just lie down and die on the side of the road, everybody has to have insurance for the health care system to work sanely.
If there's one thing that makes me cynical, it's optimists. They are just far too cynical about cynicism. If only they could see that cynics can be happy, constructive, even fun to hang out with, they might learn a thing or two.
I had such a lack of respect for women that I just treated them as a hobby, trying to live up to the supposed image of Jack Nicholson and all those guys who were womanizers.
You can hear 'Human Nature' all over our song 'Elevate.' It's an amazing song. That hooky arpeggio in the beginning is great. Unlike most Michael Jackson ballads, even though I'm a huge Michael Jackson fan, this song is kind of restrained. It's not a huge, crazy song you can dance to - it's just this beautiful piece of music.
Basically, I see myself as a maker of things who knows how to support other makers of things. At the end of the day, I am just committed to helping put good stories out into the world in whatever role is appropriate and needed for that particular project.
A person can't just drive around the North Slope, visit the locals, stop in at a burger joint. There are no locals, no burger joints, no houses, no cities, no churches.
I don't have interns. I don't have a manager. I don't have assistants. I don't have a secretary. I can't figure out Outlook Express. I'm the worst person in the world answering e-mails, and my phone is probably the oldest, most battered phone you can find. So I just talk to people.
Whatever's asked of me, I'm just going to go out there and perform my routes and how I've been coached all week, perform in the running game, pass blocking, run blocking, whatever it is.
Sometimes I feel I have no idea what I'm doing as an actor. I just did a tape for the TV remake of 'The Rocky Horror Picture Show,' and I think it could be the worst thing I've ever done.
If you rely on the media for your information, to educate yourself about the candidates and what issues are facing the country, then you get just part of the equation. I think it's important that we as citizens of this democracy take the responsibility to get as much information as possible before we go into the voting booth.
I had no idea that all the things in my career were going to happen. I sure didn't see it. I just know the good Lord blessed me with ability, blessed me with good eyesight and a good pair of hands, and then I worked at the rest.
My job doesn't define my kids in any way. When we go to places, it's about them and it's about us as a family. I think they're proud of me, but I'm just Dad.
I just love being outside.
I learned from the guys before me - Bill Cosby, Eddie Murphy, Chris Rock, Richard Pryor, just to name a few. These are guys that let it all hang out. What they lived is what they took to the stage.
Since the beginning, I have always tried to just be me. There have been moments in my career as a YouTuber where I've recognized that I'm trying to emulate something else, or I'm being heavily influenced by a YouTuber or something like that, and I realize that's not what I want to be putting out.
I just make the pictures and where they fall is where they fall. If somebody likes them, that's always nice. And if they don't like them, then too bad.
I don't enjoy putting my characters through hell unless there's a reason. I don't use violence or anything just for shock value. They're always a means to an end.
I'm just an ordinary, walking-down-the-street, mother of two children who sings for her supper.
I just like music that I can relate to, something to listen to in my car.
If you're making music, you must want to turn other people on to it, whether you're number one in the charts or number 60. I don't know, that's a commercial thing, but just the fact that other people like you... there's no point in making music, otherwise. Otherwise, you might as well make it in your bedroom and leave it there.
Vampires aren't made - they're just born that way, and no one knows why. They're sort of a race unto themselves.
I've tried just about every crazy diet you can imagine.
