I kind of always wanted to act, but to get a grant I would have needed two A-levels, and I was too far away from even O levels. I didn't know you could get a scholarship, so I determined early not to pursue that.
I always wanted to play a boxer because some of my favorite films, as a boy, were those great boxing movies, like 'Raging Bull', 'Rocky', 'The Set Up', 'Fat City and Hard Times'. I just loved those films.
For my part, if the audience wanted to see Dracula again, I would be happy to reprise the role. It is an immortal character that can appear anywhere because it lies beyond time. Possibilities are endless.
My father thought Gandhi was a great man. I suppose subconsciously, consciously even, I was aware that I wanted to please him and Ma, so I thought doing something like 'Gandhi' would be phenomenal.
I got really good input up until the age of 11, which is perfect. That's when adolescence starts, when I would have really wanted to rebel. Up until that point, though, it didn't feel like doctrine, and it gave me a great moral structure.
I look at some of my early stuff - back when I was 12 or 13 years old - and I was already doing cross-hatching back then. I don't know where I picked that up. I think I was in a hurry, and I wanted to shade something really fast, and I tried cross-hatching a shadow.
I always wanted to sing, as a child.
When I started acting, I hoped I could make some kind of positive contribution to this world. When I get a letter from some kid in Nebraska saying that, prior to Han, nobody wanted to be his friend because Asians weren't cool if they weren't into martial arts - Now he's accepted and recognized as a human being. That's pretty awesome, right?
When I was a kid, I wanted to be a boy. I really had gender issues.
I was a kid living in New Jersey, who - I'd wanted to make movies since I was a little kid, so that came before music for me. But I started playing drums just as a hobby, and I wasn't even really into jazz that much.
My desire for my own sitcom began as a little girl - I spent hours lying on my belly on the shag carpeting getting lost in the world of the '70s sitcom. All I wanted to do was run away to the Brady house, The Partridge Family bus; even the project on 'Good Times' seemed better than Clark, NJ.
I lived in a country where I couldn't live where I wanted to live. I lived in a country where I couldn't go where I wanted to eat. I lived in a country where I couldn't get a job, except for those put aside for people of my colour or caste.
I went to a tiny little high school... I'd make my foray into Calgary if I wanted to see a movie or do something crazy.
I think my mom and dad both wanted to get across to me that... I obviously grew up with great privilege and was very lucky and was able to afford college and not have student loans, and they would pay for college, but beyond that, it would be up to me to make a living.
I can remember the three restaurant experiences of my childhood. All I wanted to do on my birthday was to go to the Automat in New York... but I don't know if you consider that a real restaurant.
'Elixir' means magical potion, so I wanted to depict the kind of bottle that was used in ancient times, but that looked modern and chic as well. I also wanted it to have a golden tint to evoke the memories of sands and sunsets.
When I first began working in Japan, I had to confront the Japanese people's excessive worship for foreign goods and the fixed idea of what clothes ought to be. I wanted to change the rigid formula of clothing that the Japanese followed.
People wanted me to do a CD-ROM of 'Hitchhiker's,' and I thought, 'No, no.' I didn't want to just sort of reverse-engineer yet another thing from a book I'd already written. I think that the digital media are interesting enough in their own right to be worth originating something in.
In middle school, I had the best math teacher I've ever had, and he was deaf... and I felt inspired by him. I knew from then on that I wanted to be a math teacher.
Each of my books is different. Deliberately... I wanted to create my society, my people, in their fullness.
When I left school, I wanted to be an artist, specifically a painter.
We decided we wanted the site to provide readers with fresh new stories to enjoy between major book releases by their favorite authors while allowing those same authors to flex their creative muscles.
I wanted to be a hostage negotiator.
I think I've always wanted to direct, but I didn't go to film school. I was lucky enough to work in movies, and I think those became my film school in terms of acting and watching directors work and also writing and co-writing and producing.
When I saw the rough cuts of 'The Village of Peace,' I was immediately intrigued and wanted to share this story on the global stage.
I just wanted to get out there and do different roles and try new things.
I was neither good in sports nor at studies, but I always wanted to stand out and be noticed.
From age 7 on, I wanted to be a writer.
The Pop art I wound up doing came to me purely from 'Mad' comics. I loved the idea of doing fun stuff. I met an art dealer who wanted to show the work - that was in January 1962 - and that was the beginning for me.
Films like 'The Godfather,' 'Chinatown' and 'The Exorcist' brought a realism and currency and understatement to their genres that we wanted for 'Mildred Pierce.'
If I wanted to do 'The Missing Files of Missy Elliott,' I have probably six albums just sitting there.
Every riff had to be perfect and heavy, collectively what we wanted it to be. If there was one person in the room who went, 'Heh, I don't think it is there yet, guys,' we'd scrap the whole song. I think that took a little bit of songwriting maturity for us.
We wanted to set a good example for the growing number of divers watching.
From a young age, I had done a lot of theater and musical theater. I wasn't really sure what I wanted to do with my life, but every time I was away from acting, I just felt very incomplete and a little stir crazy.
A lot of the girls my age were impressed by silly stuff like money and fame. I wanted to be able to have intellectual and spiritual conversations with someone who was on the same page as me.
What I knew was I liked math and science, and I never wanted to memorize everything. I wanted to understand where it came from.
