My mother is a realist, and she's had biological and adoptive children, and she said it's no different: No matter what, they're putting a stranger into your arms. You don't know them yet.
Therefore, when I considered this carefully, the contempt which I had to fear because of the novelty and apparent absurdity of my view, nearly induced me to abandon utterly the work I had begun.
I'm not particularly fond of playing villains. I do want to be a working actor, and I've had to look at what was offered to me, what roles I could get, and what I could do with them. Even though I'm not drawn to putting those kinds of darker characters out there, I think it's an interesting challenge.
If we had to choose one American Idol to go out to dinner with, it would be Fantasia. There are no airs and graces about her... I like her.
My father, Dennis Popham, was a very handsome, talented artist, and as my mother always reminds me, 'someone who had wonderful style.' He was half Samoan-German, half New Zealander, and their first date was to a Fleetwood Mac concert, which I love the thought of.
In this case we're building a corner to stretch a fence and hang a gate. It had a real purpose in the ranch here. I needed to do this. But at the same time, it made a beautiful structure.
Even after I became involved in theater and involved in TV and film, I had this sort of idea that Hollywood was off limits. There was something about L.A., the mystique of it and fear of it.
Throughout the health-insurance reform process, we have had a frequent and consistent dialogue with the business community - small, medium, and large - to analyze and evaluate the impact that reform would have on them. It has been a very instructive and productive dialogue.
ABC had all these schlocky, bubblegum acts, and we had to come up with suitable material for them. In which we were amazingly unsuccessful.
In one take, I had to do 24 combat sequences, which is hard. It makes you think, 'I'd better get on my toes again.'
Since childhood she had walked the Devon rivers with her father looking for flowers and the nests of birds, passing some rocks and trees as old friends, seeing a Spirit everywhere, gentle in thought to all her eyes beheld.
I had a dog I raised for many years. He was a Pekingese with big eyes and a flat face, very cute.
One day when I was 8 years old, everyone was talking in hushed tones about a great scientist that had just died. His name was Albert Einstein.
And if we are in this state, if we had an eternity of probation, what reason have we to suppose that we should profit by it - if we had ever so long a time to chose for ourselves we should pursue our own will, to gratify our carnal I desires.
I first began to dry specimens for preservation carelessly perhaps at first, but before the season was over, I had collected between one and two hundred species.
A working woman could save a few shillings a week, and then every five weeks she'd come in and we'd cut her hair. She could shampoo it under the shower, swing it and dry it off or just let it dry by itself. It changed the lives of many young girls who'd never had the opportunity to be styled like that before.
I have had to make a decision I may not agree with, but I am required to follow the letter of the law. It is not my job to think what is best... My responsibility is to decide what the law says and to decide to the law.
My father is actually a quarry man - he deals in stone. He also at one point had a lot of sheep, he owned a sheep farm, but primarily the family business was in stone.
For someone who has been so important to my career, I have had absolutely no interaction with O.J. Simpson one-on-one in my whole life. I've tried many times. I have written him in prison, I've had other contact ... but he never responded, so I have never had a conversation with O.J. Simpson, never met the guy.
Up until now, I had ideas that I wanted to try but didn't have the opportunity to do them.
Because I was poor I had one special advantage. When you are poor, and basic survival is your concern, you have no alternative but to be an entrepreneur. You must take action to survive just as you must take action to seize an opportunity.
I learnt a lot about how to negotiate the camera: everyone had told me an actor doesn't really need to do anything on screen, but I realised that wasn't true. If you do nothing, it's boring.
The idea of not being able to control my own fertility genuinely terrifies me. That one mistake might change your life. That everything I am, and do, could be ended by the repeal of laws our mothers fought so hard for, that women had waited for the entire span of humanity to come about.
I've never been drawn to the feminist movement. I was brought up to believe that men had little to do with the home or children - except to bring in the money.
I've always wanted to be a mom. I had a great relationship with mine. I'm ready to pass on to my child all the great love that my mom had for me.
You learn quickly at 'SNL' you get in trouble if you compare yourself to other people, where they're at, or what other people had done before you.
The first time we performed as a duo, we had already been playing together in various situations.
I had to get used to wearing a mask and wearing a prosthetic and performing with those things while singing and expressing myself through stylized movement, while keeping it as human as possible so the audience could be closer to the horror of the Phantom.
I had an addiction to sugar growing up - major, major, major.
Yeah, but you need an experienced radio veteran who is a liberal advocate. And there just hadn't been any radio that did that. And so they weren't trained - they had developed all these bad habits of being objective and balanced and stuff like that.
I had bad days on the field. But I didn't take them home with me. I left them in a bar along the way home.
I think I would have had less tumult in my life if I hadn't grown up in my particular house.
It's hard to say what drives a three year-old, but I think I had a sense that nature was my solace, and nature was a place in which there was beauty, in which there was order.
I had a really normal childhood except I acted. It was like, my brother played soccer, and I was on television sometimes.
Thanks to a lot of people, not just myself, 'Whale Rider' had an amazing impact emotionally, and people remember it. I count myself very lucky that all those doors were unlocked, I just had to open them.
When I was 11, I had an Ugly Sister birthday party. All my idea. Most girls want to be a fairy or a princess, but there I am with beauty spots and fur and fluorescent pink kiss-curls.
