The fact that I get to write and direct my own personal story is an amazing thing.
Whatever story you're telling in Louisiana, the landscape is going to become a character in it.
I felt like the country lays out like a pretty beautiful story itself, heading from the East Coast to West.
Writing a story is pretty all-consuming for me - it feels a lot like method acting, and for the eight or twelve or fifteen months that I'm working on a story, I'm constantly thinking about how my narrator would react to whatever tangled situation I'm in.
It's a luxury to be able to tell a long form story. I love novels, and I love to have a long relationship with characters.
Access to legitimate information and thoughtful analysis is the lifeblood of a democracy, the basis of which people make decisions about who they vote for and what they believe in. And if you're only getting half the story, that certainly doesn't lead to an informed citizenry.
The way that I write novels in particular is I don't usually outline; I just write. Part of the fun is discovering what's happening in the story as I'm going along.
I do not really write for children: I write only for me and for the few people I hope to please, and I write for the story.
Here's the thing that people don't understand: I don't really care. I've never been a careerist. It's not a strategy. I react to certain characters and story lines and specific mode of filmmaking.
I've had a very unusual background in science - not the usual route of planning on being a scientist from age 3. I think my story shows that success is more about personal motivation and determination than it is about where you were born or what your economic status was.
When I was first approached about doing an autobiography, I said, 'absolutely not.' But when I sat down, memories came pouring out. It wrote very quickly - I think there was an emotional impulse, because once I started in, the story itself carried me along. It was a very intense writing period and took a year and change to finish.
When I was born, my parents - my mother especially - couldn't come to terms with that fact that they had another baby girl. I know these stories in detail because every time a guest visited, or there was a gathering, they repeated this story in front of me that how I was the unwanted child.
It's okay if you get rejected 20, 30 or 200 times... You don't need everyone to like your story - you just need one person who really likes your story.
I'm not tied to budgets. I'm tied to the story that I want to tell, and how much it's going to cost is up to whatever the economic situation of the studio is.
I sing 'All Apologies' with my own lyrics. People want to sing along, but then, oops, they realize it's a different story.
I had long wanted to write a love story, and I had long - wisely, I felt - shirked the challenge because I felt it the hardest story of all to write.
I'm not sure I could write a straight urban fantasy any more than I could write a straight contemporary story. I would end up being intimidated by all the small details.
There are a lot of reporters who I feel are a lot more courageous and fool-hardy than I am. Maybe at the top I'd put Dexter Filkins. He's an extraordinary man in terms of his nerve and ability to get into dangerous situations and tell the story cogently. He's bringing back real human stories. I admire that.
For the novels I wrote before selling anything, I didn't outline much. I had a vague idea of the story.
The one thing that you have that nobody else has is you. Your voice, your mind, your story, your vision. So write and draw and build and play and dance and live as only you can.
I don't hold much of care for 3D. I think it's a passing fad. It came and went in the '60s. I don't see what it adds to the story.
What interested me was the story of Bennet Omalu. You hear his narrative: Immigrant from Nigeria, landing in Pittsburgh, only to learn and tell the truth about this most American - and sacrosanct - cultural institution: the NFL.
For me, performing is the biggest part of being a rapper. There's nothing like the feeling of screaming your story to people.
I couldn't be happier teaming up to make the feature with a company as innovative as VICE. There is so much the world doesn't know about piracy in Somalia and the people involved, and I'm excited to be telling a story of piracy in Somalia from a different perspective.
What excites me about picture books is the gap between pictures and words. Sometimes the pictures can tell a slightly different story or tell more about the story, about how someone is thinking or feeling.
I have an image of Shanghai, which is quite different from other directors, I think. The story of Shanghai should happen in back alleys.
No one's personal life is in the public interest. It's gossip, bottom line. End of story.
My mother used to push 'Wuthering Heights' on me as a boy, and I sensed from her breathy description of the story that it would make me laugh. I have no plans to find out if this is true.
I'd like to think that the door is always open for just the best actor for the role, you know? Race or gender shouldn't have anything to do with it, unless the character or story is focused on that for some particular reason.
God permits war in order that men may bear the consequences of their sins as punishment. How clearly this is shown time and time again in the story of the children of Israel!
Not to take anything away from artists who don't write their own songs, but it's always been important to me to make sure it's my story.
Look at Austen. In her novels, you get a dance, followed by an encounter, followed by a letter, then a period of solitude. No flashbacks and no backstory. Let's have no more back story!
The major tragedies in life, there's just no compensation. But the minor ones you can always write about. It's my way of dealing, and it's a heck of a lot cheaper than psychiatrists. The story, you see, will get you through.
Honest people remember stories in the order of emotional prominence, but liars will recount a story in chronological order. Memory rarely works that way.
'Revolutions' was beyond my wildest dreams. I just really enjoyed it so much visually, the action and then the story and the characters, the beauty of that. The love in the film really inspired me.
My research process doesn't vary much. I do a little reading to establish a timeline and decide how I'm going to approach the story.
