Basically, I see myself as a maker of things who knows how to support other makers of things. At the end of the day, I am just committed to helping put good stories out into the world in whatever role is appropriate and needed for that particular project.
As a writer, I had learned a lot on 'Margin Call' about embracing the weaknesses of a narrative and of a project. A story always has an inherent narrative weakness.
We back Hinkley Point project. It's very important for France; it's very important for the nuclear sector and EDF.
When you start a new project, you wonder whether it's the right choice.
Every time I've crossed to a new level of film acting, the film has been a breakthrough project.
In every successful still photographic project that I have completed, there has always been a turning point in the story where I felt that perhaps I was working on something that could be very special.
When I look at offers, I think about the entire package and how it is going to work in my favour or how it's going to project me.
I'm always trying to find something unique or a project that I can do something unique in.
I'm a planner, and most networks don't plan. Bravo doesn't plan. Bravo is lucky in a lot of ways - they've got a lot of great talent, but at the same time, they don't nurture it. They lost 'Project Runway.'
The real story of the Ground Zero mosque is that the project only became feasible because of the appalling and astonishing fecklessness of the officials who were charged with the reconstruction of the site and the neighborhood all the way back in 2001.
It's funny to see how people react to the project, to read their thoughts, and I wonder aloud, 'Did they even watch the movie? Did they even get it?' I know we, myself and the entire cast, put a lot of heart, love and humor into 'Meet the Peeples'. I'm very proud of that film and what we were able to accomplish.
Conducting is more difficult than playing a single instrument. You have to know the culture, to know the score, and to project what you want to hear. Some conductors are well prepared but cannot transmit their ideas to an orchestra, and others are good communicators but have nothing to transmit because they are not absorbed enough in the score.
It would probably be better if I got involved in fewer things just because I'd have more time to write for my own purposes... But if somebody calls you up with a really cool project, it's hard to just say 'no' because you don't feel like working.
To a young person who can't come out to our show, make your own band. Make your own music project.
I have the Midas touch, in the way that when I hook up with a project, I feel, not speaking cocky or conceited, but there's a confidence I have. I learned that from Muhammad Ali; I used to bodyguard him. He taught me about confidence. So when it comes to any job I work, I'm gonna do it good; I'm going to bring it over the top.
As I was leaving graduate school in 1974, I was recruited to join a fledgling SETI project at the Hat Creek Observatory in California, mainly because I knew how to program an ancient PDP8/S computer that had been donated to the project.
I think that we're all, as human beings, so limited. If we want to write about ourselves, that's fairly easy. And if we write about our friends or our families, we can do that. But if we want to project ourselves somewhere beyond our personal experience, we're going to fail unless we get that experience or we borrow it from others.
All the excitement is during the making of a film. Once I'm done with it, I switch to my next project and am excited about that.
I had this project called 'Ruin' in my head for six years or so. This really big, really ambitious sci-fi thing. It's kind of my 'Star Wars'. I'm trying to achieve what 'Star Wars' did for me as a kid.
Because I write a book a year, I always want to do one other project every year that's stimulating in a different way. It means you can be working but not using up your prose juice, you know?
A creative project is a moving target. You never end up where you start.
'Been That Way' is a song that Timbaland gave me. Actually, the beat is. And then he called me to come out there to Miami. I went out there to work with him, and he gave me two beats for my project. One was 'Sorry Not Sorry,' and the other one was 'Been That Way,' and I recorded both of them in my hotel.
If you don't have nerves and a little trepidation about any new project, then I don't think you're really alive.
I don't want to be jack of all, master of none. I want to focus completely and excel as an actor with every project.
I'm not even really attempting to brand myself outside of 'Humans of New York.' I think part of the reason for my success is that I've put my ego aside and said I'm not going to put all of my effort into trying to promote myself. I'm going to try to promote my work and am going to try to promote my project.
I won't sit here and say an Open Source project will do things faster than a closed source, but one of the reasons why is that it sits on a whole lot of things that came before it.
'Paranormal Activity' was a unique project in that I made it basically on my own, with a little help, and I had no exposure to the filmmaking world when I made it.
I've been very fortunate in animation - when I get on a project, people tend to keep me, so I have long stays of work rather than bouncing around.
I spend a lot of time working by myself developing songs, but I really need some other counterpart to help me pull it all together, because you go nuts working if I had to finish an entire project all within my own head.
Do I believe, for example, that by using magic I could fly? No. How would you get around gravity? Impossible. Do I believe that I might be able to project my consciousness into a very, very vivid simulation of flying? Yeah. Yes, I've done that. Yes, that works.
I'm not trying to project any persona. Often people don't know where to put me. I don't fit comfortably under banners, and that's fine. I'm not worried about not making sense to people. That's probably my best asset.
When I was eleven, I got cast in the last directorial project of Christopher Reeve.
'Moonlight' is a project that resonated with me more than anything else. I wouldn't have done 'Luke Cage' if they hadn't made time for 'Moonlight.'
I had heard that Robert Duvall was interested in doing 'Lonesome Dove,' and he's one of those actors with whom I'd work on any project. So I tracked down the script and started to bug the producer, Dyson Lovell, to get in there.
Hmm, can I be obvious and say there is probably a double standard for male vs. female directors? Sadly, I think that's actually the case. And it probably stems from the fact that there are proportionately so many fewer women directors than men ones that each project is perhaps more closely scrutinized for its content.
As long as I had easy access to psychedelics at the government-sponsored research project, most of my energy went into psychedelic sessions.
