I hate going to bed. I read scripts, clean, listen to the radio - I've fallen asleep to 'This American Life' more times than I can count!
Learning lines is on my mind until I do know them. I'll read the paper or paint the house to keep from starting to memorize. I've never found an easy way.
When I'm feeling stressed out and overwhelmed, sometimes I'll read a book. But most of the time, I will either listen to music or play music. I'm basically always playing music, even if I'm not stressed!
There's no way the writing staff of 'Game of Thrones' haven't read 'The Art of War.' There's definitely an influence on 'Game of Thrones' from this book in both a general way and on the character of Lord Baelish and his strategies.
When writing 'Behind the Mask,' I opened up on every level. Hopefully, even the more knowledgeable fans, who really know me, will be surprised when they read it.
A lot of the fiction I read growing up was post-war American, and not all of it centers on Manhattan, but around people of the Mad Men generation, people like John Cheever and, in more modern times, Don DeLillo, who I always mention.
That's one of the problems with Hollywood. It'll say 'policeman,' and an unless it says 'black policeman,' a lot of times you won't even get the opportunity to read for it, which is kind of crazy, but that's the way it is.
Invariably, when people read the headline about Martin Shkreli, they hate Martin Shkreli. When they get to know Martin Shkreli, they love Martin Shkreli.
When I read the 'Dick and Jane' stories, I thought they were afraid they might forget each other's names because they always said each other's names - a lot. So if Jane didn't see the dog, Dick would say, 'Look Jane, look. There is the dog next to Sally, Jane. The dog is also next to mother, Jane. The dog is next to father, Jane.'
Time dissolves in summer anyway: days are long, weekends longer. Hours get all thin and watery when you are lost in the book you'd never otherwise have time to read. Senses are sharper - something about the moist air and bright light and fruit in season - and so memories stir and startle.
'The Gambler' by Dostoevsky. It was the first time I realised that it was possible to have good and evil in one person. It led me to read a lot of Russian literature.
I love to be a working actor, and I love to read scripts as they come in. If I find the script or character that is interesting, I want to transform myself into that character.
In general, fiction is divided into 'literary fiction' and 'commercial fiction.' Nobody can definitively say what separates one from the other, but that doesn't stop everybody (including me) from trying. Your book probably will be perceived as one or the other, and that will affect how it is read, packaged and marketed.
My manager got the script for 'Under the Dome,' and I read it and just fell in love with the character. I grew up on Stephen King, and I love his whole aesthetic of the classic American story with supernatural events happening, so it just made sense.
Obviously, in journalism, you're confined to what happens. And the tendency to embellish, to mythologize, it's in us. It makes things more interesting, a closer call. But journalism taught me how to write a sentence that would make someone want to read the next one.
History is my passion. So I write what I love to read. I find that if I combine history with a strong, sensual romance, it is like a one-two punch. The reader doesn't want the history without the romance, and of course the heavier the history, the more it has to be leavened with a sensual, all-consuming love story.
Since I'm a story-oriented critic, sometimes it's difficult to discuss issues without defining them. At the same time, I try not to give away anything that hasn't been given away in first half, in TV commercials, or that isn't obvious from the set-up of the movie. My editors are aware of this tendency of mine and read carefully for spoilers.
I'm a pretty avid reader, but I missed feminism in college. I did take an intro course where I read Mary Wollstonecraft, but I didn't read a lot of the seminal writers. Then I had two teenage daughters and was reading books on development and different issues.
People who would go to an arthouse cinema and watch a Swedish movie and read subtitles... it's a small percentage.
When I read 'Ray' for the first time, I had just quit. When I read 'The Last King of Scotland,' I had just quit. I hadn't quite quit when I read 'Scandal,' but I was feeling really unfulfilled as an actor.
For thousands of years, men have written history, so it seems to me that most of what we've read is from the male point of view.
I was shocked when I would read a newspaper from that time, and the Freedom March wasn't even mentioned.
Personally, I really enjoy sci-fi. I watch it, I read comic books, and I play video games. I love this kind of world, so to be able to work in it is a dream. I enjoy it. It's all good.
It was a big thing for me to read black writers. 'Fences,' by August Wilson. James Baldwin's 'Amen Corner.' 'The Fire Next Time.' 'The Autobiography of Malcolm X,' of course.
Finding oil is a multidisciplinary science. You need a lot of people - statisticians, engineers, and geologists, of course. And what I have learned in the past 30 years is that I read people better than I read books.
I don't like to read things that people write about me. I'd rather read what kids have to say about me because it's not their profession to do that.
Nothing new is on the earth right now. Technology, the things that we're discovering, it's been sitting here just waiting for someone to brush it off and go, 'Oh, let me read that. Let me see how I can use this information.' And it doesn't matter if it's from a tech perspective or a philosophical perspective.
When I worked with Bill Nighy on 'Wrath of the Titans,' he said to me, 'There's one thing you can promise me, and that's never, ever, ever read your reviews.'
At present I answer about 100 letters a month, and read 300 emails.
I tend to forget what I'm doing will ever be read while I'm writing it, and just get on with the task at hand.
I tell women not to believe everything they read about fashion.
I like Disney stuff. No-one looks at 'Toy Story' and says,' Oh, that's just for kids.' Why is it that games can only appeal to a certain audience, but movies and books - I mean, how many adults read 'Harry Potter?'
I can't actually read interviews with thesps now because they're almost always fantastically predictable, the men especially. Actors are forever stressing their ordinariness, their beer and football-loving commitments.
I've conducted an experiment on my kids. Instead of denying them access to media, I've encouraged it. They read comic books, play Nintendo and watch way too much TV.
I meditate - very pretentious - and I try to read as much as I can and swim at the Y.
My plan for the online version of 'Famous Monsters' is to become an online 'uncle' to an entire group of people who have never read or heard of 'Famous Monsters of Filmland.' The site will not be written in a scholarly fashion. It will be written in a playful, 'Hey, check this out!' kind of way.
