The one thing I have wanted to stay away from is the steroids. When I had an attack two years ago in my home state of Mississippi, they put me on steroids, thinking they were doing the right thing, and I had a violent reaction.
I've never had white teeth. To be honest, I've never been told to do any of those horrible things - get your teeth whitened or your nose straightened.
I had spindly little ankles, and growing up in Canada, I couldn't skate. I was no good at any sports so was very much a pariah through those adolescent years.
In 220 years of American presidential politics, there had been no serious female major party contenders, though women had been campaigning for the presidency since before they could vote, starting with Victoria Woodhull in 1872 and Belva Lockwood in 1884.
I don't blame folks for not wanting to put me in their movies or whatever. I understand if their audiences had an association with me.
I'd begun reading Crumb shortly before that, and other underground stuff, so that was an influence to some degree. Of course the Marvel and DC comics, they had been my main interests in my teenage years.
I said if I made 10 films in my life, I would be very lucky. That's how I meant it. My fear after my first one was whether they would let me make another one, so I had this goal in my head.
I started on an Apple II, which I had bought at the very end of 1978 for half of my annual income. I made $4,500 a year, and I spent half of it on the computer.
We talk about how hard it is now. But if we look back at the '60s, we actually had a president that was assassinated. We had riots, we had Vietnam, Martin Luther King, Malcolm X, the FBI, and the Black Panther war. There was so much happening at the time where it felt like America was coming apart at the seams.
Earlier I had been in New York, which was my first time to New York, and I got booked in the Baby Grand up in Harlem there. I was booked there for a week; they kept me there for about a month. That's where Doc Pomus and myself became very close friends and start running together around town and what not.
When I made Blue Moon Swamp, there was a lot of trial and error; I was trying to find people who would be simpatico with my style, and with what I had in mind for the album.
When we faced a possibility here in New York of chemical and biological attack, three days after September 11, I called in all of the experts, academic experts, Nobel Prize laureates, and doctors who had dealt with anthrax, doctors who had dealt with various forms of chemical and biological attack.
I had some really dear friends who died from AIDS-one in particular. His family wasn't around and he didn't have many friends. I spent a lot of time with him in his later days.
Of this they drank half a pint every day, and sometimes more or less, as it operated, by way of gentle physic. Two others had each two oranges and one lemon given them every day. These they ate with greediness, at different times, upon an empty stomach.
If my parents had discouraged me, I would have turned out very differently. They raised me in an open-minded, liberal environment.
We can put television in its proper light by supposing that Gutenberg's great invention had been directed at printing only comic books.
Blood is one of the things that made fights cool. Like, you knew it had gotten serious. I understand why we don't do it anymore.
I have had strange animals as pets all my life. I was shy growing up, and shy people tend to interact better with animals than people. Animals are direct, not duplicitous.
If you have a guy like Jermaine, it's a pain in the neck. When we were on the road together in Europe, Jesus, I had to kick the girls off of him. I mean, they throw themselves on the floor and take off their hats.
However saying that I totally support the concept of civil partnerships in the eyes of the law, and think it a disgrace that same sex couples have had to wait so long for legal rights, protection and recognition.
I had a very happy childhood, but I wasn't that happy a child. I liked being alone and creating characters and voices. I think that's when your creativity is developed, when you're young. I liked the world of the imagination because it was an easy place to go to.
I didn't have to audition. That's common, but it had never happened to me before. Normally, I hate auditioning. I need to stew and think... let the character develop and grow inside me.
One gets the impression that this is how Ernest Hemingway would have written had he gone to Vassar.
I've had this reoccurring dream for the last ten to fifteen years.
I thought his performance was absolutely wonderful and had said so, but he seemed, as actors quite often are when they first see something, to be disappointed. I think he expected more from the film and himself.
Howard University shocked me into realizing how desperately sick the Negro could be, how he could be led into self-destruction, and how he would not realize that it was the society that had forced him into a great sickness.
If we had a consensus we wouldn't have to go to a referendum.
I have always been fascinated by fashion. I never had any interest in waiting tables or bar-tending, so retail was sort of my best option.
We used to go to the pictures every Saturday night but we had to leave a little bit early and get home and watch Match of the Day - and my wife still complains she missed the last five minutes of every film we saw.
The people in Dominica and the small communities where I were had no idea who I was, and there's no better security than that.
I had written a script called 'Freed,' which I had wanted to direct.
I used to be so into soccer. I would wear soccer team hoodies, another soccer team's pants, and Manchester United earrings. And I had, like, five of everything, so I would just wear the same outfit all the time!
After 'A Perfect Storm' came out, I heard from a young reader, who had suffered a similar background as 'Arizona,' that I had helped her to find peace. That was the most amazing thing in the world to me.
I think anybody who has had a long relationship and has had a really hard time letting go, wants to feel like it's not all for naught, and it's meaningful, because it makes you who you are.
As I got older, I realized that my life experience, what I really had, was always going to be more valuable than what I pretended to have.
I've been working professionally as an actor since I was 20. That's going to be 25 years soon. So, that's a veteran. That's a big-time veteran. I've had some great successes, and I've had some not-successes.
