I'm always surprised when actors say they don't like sex scenes. It's like a freebie. It's fun to make out with someone. So yes, thumbs up on that.
I read the 'Kapoor & Sons' script in a half hour, forty five minutes. Not because I skimming through it... I read it like a book. By the end, I was blown away. I picked up the phone and said, 'This script is gold.'
It's always nice when someone you don't know comes up to you and says a couple nice things about your work. It's always a pleasure.
Once I put down a color, I never cover it up. If you are born a musician, why become a banker?
If two guys want to go see each other, let them be in the middle, let them throw some punches, then break it up.
And the American public was able to make up their own mind whether this verdict was a just verdict or not. So I think there's a lot of value in the public being able to see how the system works or doesn't work, so I think there's a definite value there.
Everyone else thinks I'm a nonfiction writer. I think it's because my nonfiction is easier to find. But I write both in equal measure. I love writing fiction because I can totally lose myself, and I get to make up the rules of the world that I'm writing.
When you discover first love as a teenager, your whole life revolves around it and you open yourself up to it.
John Woo is a very nice and kind person; he gives almost no direction at all, trusting me to come up with the character. But when I think of him, I think of explosions!
One thing that was amazing about World War II was that everybody signed up for the duration plus six months. Fliers got to leave combat after 25 missions, or 35 missions, but other than that, you were in it. You were part of the great effort, until, oh boy, six months after it was over.
We didn't have nine brands of cereal at home. We'd line up to fill our bowls from a giant vat of oatmeal.
My ambition has always been to work with English and American actors and directors. Those were the movies that I was watching when I was growing up.
I think I have femininity, I have masculinity, but I get to use all of Jeffrey, and that's very powerful. And this is what I always thought when I went down in my little basement in San Francisco, where I grew up, and daydreamed about being an actor: It felt like this. This is what it felt like.
How could a guy sitting in a cave in Afghanistan, have... plotted so perfectly the hijacking of four planes and then guaranteed that three of them would end up precisely on their targets?
When I was growing up, I, like many Jews, cheered what appeared to be the receding of faith from everyday life. The further religion got from our lives the better our lives would get, I thought, because persecution had been such a burden to Jewish families for generations.
I kept extensions in until I finished high school. Although, once I got to college, that's when it all started to shift. I think it was just growing up and moving to New York, where I saw so many different people, vibes, and looks, and everyone really owned it. That led me to feel more free, take more risks, and go back into my natural hair.
I just played at a club in L.A. called the Baked Potato. It fits like 90 people. It's like playing somewhere in a basement in, like, Indiana or somewhere where all your friends show up. It's really fun and there's a very different energy to that than to play to 50,000 at a Tokyo baseball stadium.
I know when I was an assistant coach and I started interviewing for head coaching jobs, I actually lost out on many jobs, several jobs, and the complaint that I got was, 'Well, he doesn't fit the mold of a head coach. He doesn't look the part. He's not gonna jump up and down. He's not going to scream.'
The songs, if I write alone in a room, end up being a little more quiet, a little more subdued. If I play with other musicians or percussive instruments, it might end up being a little more upbeat.
Nothing changes overnight unless you win an Oscar. You move up a little bit, but you are always a little fish - just in a slightly bigger pond.
Even when I lost my job at CBS News, I set up shop in my youngest daughter's bedroom and started Brainstormin' Productions and the Hannah Storm Foundation. And guess who was there, visiting me and enthusiastically making business charts and graphs that covered my entire kitchen table? My dad, of course.
I still feel like the same girl who grew up in Albion Park. I'm such a family girl. I haven't changed.
We moved around a lot when I was growing up. I was always the new kid in class, but I was good at making friends. With an upbringing like that, I was either going to become an actor or a politician. Thank God I became an actor! I'm not cut out for politics.
My dad doesn't like religion much, but I grew up very close to the Baptist tradition. God isn't this distant thing. God is right here with you all the time. He's your buddy, and you can talk about everything.
I don't really have disappointments, because I build myself up for rejection.
I don't really like meetings, I like recording and performing music. I need to set myself up for when the time does come that I need better distribution or just a bigger team behind me.
When I got the role in 'Homeland,' it really opened something up. Other people respected me more as an actor, doors were opened, and I understood for the first time that it wasn't personal. All that rejection wasn't personal.
It doesn't take much for anyone to pick up anything I play - it's quite simple. I go for a good song. And if you hear a good song, you don't dissect it - you just listen, and every bit seems right.
I didn't grow up around all white people; I never wanted to gentrify hip-hop, I've never wanted to speak to an all-white audience.
I grew up in such a melting pot. There's more ethnicities in Queens than there is in any place on the planet. So you grow up knowing things about other cultures.
Trouble is, we call politics a game, but it isn't one. There is no referee, and the teams make up the rules as they go along. You can't cry foul or offside in politics. Almost anything goes.
Any party that would put Sarah Palin up on a pedestal will never have my support.
As an older dad you can certainly get down on the floor. The problem is can you get up again?
Having grown up on 'Star Trek,' I've had one great dream since childhood, and that is to see my life end somewhere other than here on Earth.
In general, the auditions I go up for are very sparse, I guess because of my ethnicity. And the characters are very similar: shy, innocent and naive; the connotations that come from the way that I look.
I had an audition for Mary Jane Watson in 'Spiderman' and ended up playing Betty Brant in that series. I auditioned for Amy Adams' role in 'Catch Me If You Can' and, you know, ended up playing the bank teller. So there were a lot of times early on where I felt like I was always sort of the bridesmaid, never the bride - never quite right.
