The definition of success to me is not necessarily a price tag, not fame, but having a good life, and being able to say I did the right thing at the end of the day.
If you go to Africa and you're white, you're probably not going to get that much work either. But the fact is that there is a longer history of black integration in the U.S. I don't have any resentment about this: I did the maths, calculated it against my ambition and decided to leave England.
I actually started off majoring in computer science, but I knew right away I wasn't going to stay with it. It was because I had this one professor who was the loneliest, saddest man I've ever known. He was a programmer, and I knew that I didn't want to do whatever he did. So after that, I switched to Communications.
As a filmmaker, you have to stand in front of what you did and make choices that you could do with a clear conscience.
Did your mother never tell you not to drink on an empty head?
It did not come naturally; in fact, it would be difficult to conceive of any more dogmatic and less tolerant people than the first settlers on New England shores.
Did I say that the President's entire job is image management? Of course not.
Only thanks to blissful ignorance, and the inspiration of my grandparents' story, did I actually believe tackling a novel would be an easy task. I've since learned otherwise.
When I was 12 years old, someone took me to see Martha Graham. It was nothing like what I thought of as serious dancing and even then I knew I was having a great experience. It was as if somebody was moving through space like no one ever did before.
We hung out on the streets, played stickball, and did all of the things that other kids did.
'Mamma Mia' and 'Dallas' have proved to me that the things you dream about can happen. I don't ask myself, 'How did I get here?' but instead, 'I deserve to be here. I was right to think this would happen.' I'm a firm believer in the power we have in our minds to want something and pursue it in a sane and focused way.
Spencer Tracy was a man who did very much what I do on a set, and that is, he comes down and he does his job, and then he goes back to his dressing room.
Why did men worship in churches, locking themselves away in the dark, when the world lay beyond its doors in all its real glory?
I did used to have nightmares about the idea that when I die, there is a spark of consciousness which basically creates the world. 'Is the world going to disappear if this spark of consciousness disappears? And how do I know it won't? How do I know there's anything there except what I'm conscious of?'
My dad used to say, 'You wouldn't worry so much about what people thought about you if you knew how seldom they did.
The 1960s were big for folk music, and the Kingston Trio led the way. They were the ones who started it all. The music was fresh and alive. College kids loved it and their parents did, too.
It did not prepare me for writing or 'Power of Attorney.' However, what it did is that it forced me out of the DA's office. I stopped getting that county check.
The fact that people didn't know I was British did work for quite a while.
I learned different ways of working out. I learned a lot about my body. Let me just say that Arnold Schwarzenegger had 20-inch biceps when he did his first film, and when I did 'Saala Khadoos,' being a vegetarian, I managed 18 and half inches.
Before the season begins, I had even damaged some frames, but Ken did not hold it against me and kept all his confidence. He was the one who incontestably changed my life, because without his help, I do not know what I will have become.
I wish we did have responsibility for the hair. I have been screwed up by the hair on many occasions.
I just ended up focusing on film editing as I was getting my career started. I'm very passionate about editing and will continue to edit for the rest of my career, but it's not like that was all I did and then somehow I grew into directing a movie.
I finished my university, was part of NSD, and did full length plays on stages.
When did I start comedy? I came out of the womb and did 10 minutes.
I did this TV show, which was my first job ever. It wasn't a real acting part. It was like this promo for this sitcom and the main actress was meeting three different real people and then she was going to decide who was going to be on the episode.
When did it - When did it become okay for someone to hit home runs and forget how to play the rest of the game?
But when I did think about it and looked at the whole package - the producers behind the show, the writers, the cast I would be working with - I would have been a fool to turn it down just because the role for me was another gay role.
In the early '90s, I was hired to write educational dramas about HIV and AIDS in the shantytowns. I did that for two and a half years, and then I was hired on other films. When 'Tsotsi' presented itself, I thought, 'This is not a world I grew up in, but I've spent a great deal of time writing about it and researching it in my past.'
After I was fired from Disney, I did some of the worst movies ever made.
What Richard and Mildred Loving did was, by their nature, not by any calculus, they separated themselves from the political conversation. They did not have an agenda. They did not want to be martyrs. They did not want to be symbols of a movement.
I wanted to do - there was this film called 'Magic' that Anthony Hopkins did. And the director wanted me. The writer wanted me. Joe Levine said no, I don't want any comedians in this.
I had never thought of my career as going in the direction that it did, as far as fan response was concerned.
I think I did four 'Law & Order' episodes. I did two 'Criminal Intent,' one mothership, and one 'SVU.'
Obama has little or nothing to do with the civil-rights movement. His roots are in Kenya, and he is shaped far more by anti-colonialism than by anything that Martin Luther King said or did.
I don't know what the big issue is about a kiss with Neve Campbell in Wild Things. It's a role, and I think a bigger issue is made out of it. It was a part I took and it's what the character did, so I did it.
I was really glad to meet Jane Clark because it did give me an insight. I couldn't imagine what kind of woman she was. I was hugely impressed by her energy, straightforward nature and enthusiasm for life.
