There is an almost anti-epicurean tradition at the very base of America. For much of the middle part of American history, people who wanted to overcome that went to France.
I've always wanted to make a film about the Tong Wars, the rioting and the crime factions in San Francisco's Chinatown in the early part of the last century.
I have always lived the way I wanted regardless of whether or not it was popular.
Bell Biv Devoe, back in the day, we used to look up to them. They had incredible style back then, so we wanted to be like them.
I bumped into my cousin after she'd shaved her hair very short, and she looked incredible. She seemed so effortless and cool, and I wanted that. And, I've had it like that ever since.
I wanted to be a part of telling women there is no segregation. There is no need to ever not feel beautiful or glamorous. There should be nothing that gets in your way.
My junior year, I went to an LSAT-prep course. I flipped over my test and thought, 'You bastards.' I walked out and went to Waffle House. That's where I had what I call 'The Waffle House Epiphany': I didn't want to be a lawyer. I wanted to make a dent in the universe.
Despite my mother saying I have been destined to be an actress my whole life, I remember being the kid who grew up not knowing what I wanted to do with my life.
Liberman said to me, 'I must cut back on the work you do for Vogue. The editors don't like it. They say the photographs burn on the page . After some years, I began to understand that what they wanted of me was simply a nice, sweet, clean-looking image of a lovely young woman.
I was a rebel and I wanted to do something that nobody else did, and nobody else played the cello. Also, I was also a small kid and I liked the fact that it was big.
I've always wanted to do a cutesy little song with a guy and girl singing back and forth and thought that Regina Spektor would be kind of cool for that. I love her voice. She's an amazing musician.
We needed to make a sound that's not gonna fit in with everything else - we wanted to make something that was completely unique and individual to us. We spent a lot of time trying to make a sound that was a One Direction sound. At first it was quite hard to do that, but I'm really happy with the sound.
When I started, I was an artist; I wanted to be an artist. I became an actor almost by accident. I acted for fifteen years and tried to produce. I looked for stories that were the story beneath the story that you thought you knew, like 'The Candidate'.
I wanted to have a home where I could go home and unlock my door and go in and be settled. I was tired of being a gypsy.
There were times I was told, 'You are too gay.' I turned down a lot of things because producers said they wanted me to be different. I said, 'It's not going to happen.'
The further away we got from 9/11, the more I wanted to find some way to recover. I wanted to talk about the more anonymous corners of the city, because I think it's very important that not all of that anger was turned to revenge.
I don't know if I was a poseur - I really did love metal, always - but I gave a lot of other things a chance. I wanted to meet, um, girls, so I would check out 'Depeche Mode.'
I had always wanted to lend my voice to a character. I did a voice for this video game, called 'Fallout 3,' and that was really fun.
There was a time when I was offered two episodes of 'Alias,' that show with Jennifer Garner which J.J. Abrams did back before he became the mega producer and super successful director. I instead decided I wanted to play this family guy on a short-lived UPN 'Second Time Around.' It starred Boris Kodjoe and Nicole Ari Parker.
There were a lot of years that I was trying to do things that other people wanted me to do. But you have to follow your heart. Believe that you have a unique group of talents and abilities that are going to allow you to accomplish something in an area that interests you. Work at that and try to make some kind of contribution to your community.
