I have a good visual memory. I'm good with faces, but names - I get in trouble a lot; I can't seem to remember people. People think I'm rude. As a side comment, you know, I'm not being rude: I just kind of blank out.
You don't know when you are immersed in a book what the reaction to it will be, but I feel great about 'The Lake of Dreams.'
Writing with kids is an adventure. It seems like someone always has the flu or pink-eye. I mean, you don't even have to be in direct contact with anyone to get pink-eye. But for parents who write, flexibility becomes essential, and as long as I have a pad of paper and a pen, I can write anywhere. Starbucks is fine.
If one of you pass out and go to the emergency room, the hospital has to see you. But when you go to the emergency room, you've had a stroke, or you've had a heart attack. If you had preventative medicine, you could maybe be taking your high blood pressure medicine so you wouldn't have a stroke and cut down the costs.
I've been waiting to have facial hair on camera for the longest time - I'm always playing teenagers, and I always have to shave. I'll let you in on a little secret: I have sensitive skin, and I'm a sensitive guy, so shaving is something that I don't look forward to.
I hope I haven't grown up. The cliche for all artists is that you don't want to lose that child inside. I think when you get sedentary and set in your ways, you can lose a lot of that spontaneity and creativity. I hope I'm holding on to that.
Sometimes you take a job for the money, sometimes you take it for the location, sometimes you take it for the script; there are just a number of reasons, and ultimately what you see is the whole landscape of it. But I can tell you from behind the scenes - that's what it is, as an actor.
In art, at a certain level, there is no 'better than.' It's just about trying to operate for yourself on the most supreme level, artistically, that you can and hoping that people get it. Trusting that, just because of the way people are built and how interconnected we are, greatness will translate and symmetry will be recognised.
When you sit down and see someone play at a piano, you don't think, 'Wow - what a fantastic machine.'
The secret of concentration is the secret of self-discovery. You reach inside yourself to discover your personal resources, and what it takes to match them to the challenge.
However difficult life may seem, there is always something you can do and succeed at.
I think as any artist you always want to grow; you always want to get better.
You want to know what four words I probably hate the most? 'That's not my job.'
You have to list all your special skills on a form when you get an agent. There's fencing, stage combat, horse riding, motorbike riding, Spanish, French, German, whatever. I just ticked everything. I talk about 10 languages according to that form. I even ticked the extreme sports box.
If you do something that is not gags and punchlines and is character-based, where there are no jokes as such, then it all has to come from a place of truth, and I love that - I love nothing more than getting very serious about my comedy.
At one time Tribune Syndicate emptied out their storeroom. They put tables full of original cartoons down in the lobby and said take one if you want one. The comics were simply a burden to them.
I remember standing on a medal podium at the 1976 Montreal Olympics, imbued with a sense that if you won enough basketball games, there was no such thing as poor, backward, country, female, or inferior.
Look at Scottish guys wearing kilts - you could look at them and laugh, but the way they carry themselves, how can you? You can wear some of the weirdest things and be cool. If you believe in it, that's what makes it cool.
You can't convince someone else - whether it's a potential employer, a loan officer at the car dealership, or someone you've been crushing on - that you're amazing and terrific if you don't actually think you are.
An interesting insight into the ruthlessness of studio executives: I was having a conversation with Alex Gansa, a creator of 'Homeland,' and I said, 'So you guys must have seen 'Life' and liked me in it, right? That's the most recent thing I've done over here.' And he went, 'No, Damian. You actually nearly didn't get the job because of 'Life.'
I find that whoever you are as a person is how you're gonna fight, and every basic instinct kind of comes out at that moment.
As a filmmaker, you have to understand the essence of the book and tell the story you want to see on the screen, and hopefully please yourself - because you can't possibly please everyone.
I hate when people say, 'He's having too much fun.' I've been in this game since I was 19 years old. Did you see a different Jose Reyes? No. You see the same guy every single day; nothing changes.
Every company needs to have a skunkworks, to try things that have a high probability of failing. You try to minimize failure, but at the same time, if you're not willing to try things that are inherently risky, you're not going to make progress.
I'm a Texan - my idea of gun control is hitting what you aim at and nothing else.
Perhaps you could say that mountaineers are driven by ego or our competitiveness, but there's a lot more to it than that. Whether it's a huge face in the Himalaya or some crag in the woods behind your house, exploration offers us a unique perspective on the world that you can't really find anywhere else.
The nice thing about the Bible is it doesn't give you too many facts. Two an a half lines and it tells you the whole story and that leaves you a great deal of freedom to elaborate on how it might have happened.
People make basic assumptions based on what they have now. But you have to ask yourself, 'Is this really what people are going to be doing in five years?' Very few people ask themselves what they would actually want instead if they could wave a magic wand.
I would still work with Mel Gibson! He's talented, man! Come on, he came up with 'Apocalypto,' man! I want to work with this guy. I've worked with Steven Seagal. He's out of his mind. I mean, I've worked with Spike Lee for four films. I've worked with some people that you can say are right there teetering between genius and madness.
Sometimes you wonder if television is really affecting the culture.
I'm always interested in what you can do with technology that people haven't thought of doing yet.
Americans do not want to think that there is an alternative to what we have. Therefore, as soon as you say 'fascism' or whatever it might be, then the American response is to say 'no' because we lack the categories that allow us to think outside of the box that we are no longer in.
As far as value goes, obviously it's nicer to be in an environment where you feel comfortable. But it's also clear that it's probably not the most realistic thing.
In football, you win as a group, you lose as a group; you divide the credit and the blame.
My favorite moment is when someone says, 'I like 'Unleashed.' 'Now You See Me' is so much fun.' That's what I want to do: smart, fun and big movies. I cannot lie, I love working with those big paint brushes. I have a blast doing these movies.
Democrats are like a big tortoise that's on its back and can't get up; you can't make jokes about that.
