In my day, when I was a young kid, army duty was compulsory in South Africa or you go to jail. I had the choice, so I spent a year in the entertainment unit, and outside of doing shows - and I used to write for, arrange for the big band - outside of doing that, I actually had a rock band in the army.
We all grew up, our grandmothers and mothers had about three channels to watch, so we watched those soaps and now, a generation has grown up with the Internet and computers and video games.
In 25 years of exile, I've never had a frozen account, either in Switzerland or elsewhere in the world.
I was no longer, if I had ever been, afraid to die: I was now afraid not to die.
From reading over the notes for each session it was apparent that there had been improvement by more or less regular steps from almost complete terror at sight of the rabbit to a completely positive response with no signs of disturbance.
When I started out, nobody gave me scripts, so I had to write.
The hardest thing was learning to write. I was 13, and the only writing I had done was for Social Studies. It consisted of copying passages right out of the encyclopedia.
My earliest memory is my mom picking me up after I had fallen down, giving me a big hug and reading me 'Goodnight Moon.' From that moment, to this one, every single memory I have of my mom is that regardless of what was happening in her life, she was always, always there for me.
Conceived as a short-term remedy to the occasional ailment of acute labour shortages in key industries, the indentured-labour service had to be dismantled by the Conservatives owing to its inevitably scandalous abuse by disreputable employers. By 2012, there were 338,000 temporary foreign workers in Canada.
I remember being amazed that actors had a union. I thought only coal miners had unions, or guys that worked in automobile plants. That's an indication of how naive I was.
My dad went to jail for a long time. We lost everything, and the situation never resolved itself. My parents had this sort of passionate, disastrous desire for each other - not ideal to grow up in.
I learned to take those experiences that were difficult in my life and in the adversity that I had overcome to use it for a positive change.
I had the advantage of reading the book, and when the script was first submitted to me, it was just another gangster story - the east side taking over the west side and all that.
I loved 'BattleDome.' It was the first thing I ever auditioned for, and I was so crazy in the audition that I knew I had the part.
I've always had a lot of ambivalence about fame and celebrity.
Once anthropology and geology had opened up the pre-recordkeeping darkness of humanity's long, slow, sustained infancy as suitable grounds for speculation, writers began trying to imagine human existence as it must have been with only stone-age technology.
Rodney King is a progenitor of all these cell phone videos that we have. It was unusual that a person had a video camera to take a picture of the Rodney King beating. Now, of course, everybody has a phone, and that has been one of the key factors in all the new attention to the issue.
I'm not afraid to play ugly - look at 'Adaptation.' I looked like a turd that a cat had coughed up.
My friends always had bands, and we would play together.
If I had the gift of Jerry Seinfeld, of Bill Cosby, of Lewis Black, these instinctively brilliant comic minds, then you go that route! But you gotta know your limitations. I'm more of an actor, more of a process guy. I did Tom Snyder, just as Danny Aykroyd did on 'SNL.' I did it in the club.
Libraries have had a long history of dealing with authoritarian organizations demanding reader records - who's read what - and this has led to people being rounded up and killed.
When Jackie Kennedy wanted to wear her favourite European designers, she was told no. She had to start working with brands like Adolfo, who had to create Chanel knock-offs because that's what she wanted to wear.
In high school I had sex with girls quite a few times. They were straight women who I convinced to jump in the sack with me.
If the prime minister really believes it, he must be the only person left who thinks that the recent bombs in London had no connection at all with his policy in Iraq.
If I had to give one piece of advice to a budding entrepreneur, I would say: 'Aim big.'
My parents were big music fans, and my dad plays music, so I grew up with Madonna, Frank Zappa, the Beatles, Alice In Chains... it was all over the place. I had a Third Eye Blind record, but I also had Korn, Courtney Love, and Shania Twain.
I knew I had more in me than just standing up and having my picture taken... Being in the studio, I have to have an opinion.
When I was a child I had a best friend who lived across the road from me. When her mother died unexpectedly it was like losing a member of my own family. I think I am still affected by the memory of that loss.
My mom had done some TV and commercials before I was born, and so when I was born, she knew I had a really big interest in acting because I was always acting in plays with my dolls, and they were sort of boring, because I've seen them on tape; they always involved a lot of singing and dragging them around by their hair.
We discussed the history of postwar Japan and how Japan had missed an opportunity to build a more functional democracy because of the focus on fighting communism driven in large part by the American occupation.
Something happened when I was in elementary school. A Disney artist named Bruce McIntyre retired, and he had done drawings for 'Pinocchio' and 'Snow White' that was just classic stuff. He moved to the town I grew up in, Carlsbad, and he became a part-time art teacher at our elementary school.
In high school, I was kind of a loner because I had moved to a new school.
I wanted to be a writer that had an impact. I wanted, and still I say the same thing, I want to write books that change people's lives, change how we think and live and read and write. I wanna write books that are read in 50 or 100 years.
I was sure I'd set the world on fire, and it was hard for a young feller like me to realize the truth - that I hadn't set the world on fire, and I was totally unprepared to handle the consequences if 'The Big Trail' had been a success and launched me as a star.
I never even had a MySpace.
Besides walking, I do stretches every day. I had back trouble starting when I turned 40, so I have to stretch out my muscles every day.
