I've had an ambition to be somebody since I was 13 years old because I wanted to help my family. I wanted to hurry and grow up so I could make enough money to buy my father a big car and my mother a beautiful home with an electric washing machine and all those things she used to see in the newspapers.
If somebody had told me when I was in graduate school, 'Brian, in 35 years you'll get a chance to fly the first commercial spacecraft with no computers,' I'd have said, 'I don't think so. People are not going to be that stupid.'
We were younger. And it's basically like looking at football classics. You see things that you did, you see things that you could've done better and you think about all the good relationships that you had with the cast.
In the course of my life, I have often had to eat my words, and I must confess that I have always found it a wholesome diet.
I think my wife saw a picture of the rock group Journey, and they're kind of aging, and the one guy had dyed blonde hair with black roots, and... my idea was to get a little earring, I wanted to have a dangling earring.
It would bother me if a judge told me how I had to believe.
I don't bat an eye at stuff like that. I've had my share of wins. If I worried about the games I should have won, it would probably drive me crazy. It was a fun game to pitch in.
I've had high-powered publicists in my career, and I've had publicists when they've had no power. I've run the gamut.
I've always been dabbling in suits, but like a lot of people in the neighborhoods I grew up in, I had my snapback; I had my v-neck. I still got them in the closet. I got my J's, my Forces; it was standard.
I talked to the record company about what I had in mind. They said they wanted something lush. I figured the best thing to do was let them hear what I had in mind.
What I've always said is that I'm opposed to institutional racism, and I would've, had I've been alive at the time, I think, had the courage to march with Martin Luther King to overturn institutional racism, and I see no place in our society for institutional racism.
I had to live this long, have the experiences I've had, to create what I do. I knew I wanted to write for years, but I had to be ready so I wouldn't blow it. The move to Maine was the final step.
We spent four days filming in a helicopter. I had never seen London from that viewpoint - you get a sense of how big it is and how easy it is to get lost. There was one day when we couldn't find Brick Lane: we spent 25 minutes looking and then realised it was directly below us.
I wish I had as much in bed as I get in the newspapers.
I think this lack of a center has something to do with the loss of certainties that Christianity had to offer.
I've had two proposals since I've been a widow. I am a wonderful catch, you know. I have a lot of money.
I had some great high points and thought: 'This is fantastic. I'm going to be a huge star.' Then something happens, and you can't get a job to save your life.
In 2003 Scotland had 36 new business registrations per 10,000 adults. It's still the same.
I grew up on genre. If it had a dragon on the cover, I was interested. But horror, especially, really gripped me in its bony fist.
I've done a lot of basketball drills, not a whole lot of competitive stuff. I have basically been in the gym everyday working on my game, working on the time off that I've had from the game, just getting myself prepared mentally and physically for the season.
Our writers are full of cliches just as old barns are full of bats. There is obviously no rule about this, except that anything that you suspect of being a cliche undoubtedly is one and had better be removed.
When he brought it to me four years ago, Rodney King had just arrived, I was involved in the clean-up of L.A. and I guess it was part of my experience.
I'm always a great student of writers' work habits. Balzac sat at his desk dressed in a monk's robe, and he always had to have a rotten apple on his desk. The smell of the apple inspired him somehow.
When I was 16, I was in Boston and some friends said, 'You want to go to New York?,' I went with my roommate... These guys said, 'We're going to this club. Just don't go in the washroom.' It was CBGB. I had no idea what it was or the history of all the music. All I knew was this was my first 21-and-over club and I managed to get in!
I had been on tour with people like Roy Orbison. I knew Bobby Darin, Sam Cooke. So many great performers.
I've been successful, but I haven't had any unwanted attention. To be honest, I've never invited or courted attention. I think if you act normal, then people will treat you normally. If you go around with a big entourage all the time, you're not staying true to yourself.
In my Gau, as far as I know, only Communists who had actually worked against the State were arrested.
Professionally speaking, the proudest moment was when I booked the 'Human Stain.' I knew it had Nicole Kidman, Anthony Hopkins, Ed Harris and Gary Sinise on board, and the director Robert Benton was an academy award winner for 'Kramer vs Kramer.'
There were all us baby boomers who had a grammar school education, started to learn, then went on the pill, the whole thing, and so there are today a lot more women writers, editors, producers, and so a lot more women's stories. God, the BBC's practically run by women.
Until I got the weight off, there was something inside of me that said, 'You hate yourself.' You get too depressed over the weight to really work on this. For whatever reason, I had to take the weight off to do this work.
Italians have always had a high savings rate. They love putting their money into their own government bonds - even more than in houses, stocks and gold. The higher rates climb, the happier they are to invest. So if austerity plans drive rates up, it's music to Italian ears.
The one appearance that I made for President Kennedy, he, as I understand, had his choice or was asked to make a list of the people he would like to have perform, and I was fortunate enough to be one of them.
Half of the great comedians I've had in my shows and that I paid a lot of money to and who made my customers shriek were not only not funny to me, but I couldn't understand why they were funny to anybody.
Last year we had so many people coming in and out they didn't bother to sew their names on the backs of the uniforms. They just put them there with Velcro.
I think, for an actor, the whole world is a place of work because if you focus on characters and on stories, they are everywhere, so yeah, I feel very privileged to have had this great opportunities in the international cinema and especially in the American cinema.
I had only that one picture, Hitler, the Beast of Berlin, in which I had a part big enough to impress anyone. I tried for better roles over and over again.
