I love doing impressions of politicians because the task is always to imagine the private lives of these people whose job it is to project an image of staunch, unflinching leadership and grace, and that's just not how human beings, in their heart of hearts, work.
It doesn't sound that cool to say it, but I still get nervous for any show. But it's different degrees - playing a small basement of a club versus playing a festival like Firefly or Bonnaroo. The feeling is, 'Crap, I'm about to be blasted in the face,' and once you get started, then it's like, 'OK, I've done this before. I know what I'm doing.'
An actor equals, sometimes, an entitled baby. People take care of things for me, and they pay greater attention to things than I was ever capable of doing. But in the last few years, I have learned a great deal more about taking care of things. I pay my own bills now.
I don't like to use my last name. I don't like it attached to things because people think you can just stamp your name on something, and it's not organic or that you're just doing it for money.
I have to have music playing constantly. It creates the tone and mood for anything you are doing. I specifically love rock, and Jimi Hendrix is one of my favorite artists. My favorite song is 'Red House,' because it's heavy on the blues.
I had to watch government fail for 25 years doing consumer reporting before I really saw it because intuitively, the reaction is problem, bring government and government will make it better.
When I doing dinner theater in high school, I was talking to a woman who had been in the business for a while and I said I want to act, that's all I want to do with my life and she said if you're serious then you need to hone every discipline you can.
Especially in music, you wonder, Okay, should I still be doing this? Like, are you overstaying your welcome at the party? But I don't know.
A lot of newspaper columns used to be written in a rat-a-tat-tat, fast-paced style - and they tended to be funny. They were a little relief from the grimmer, grayer parts of the newspaper, and one of the best people at doing this was Will Rogers.
In a hockey fight, barring the occasional brawl, there's actually some etiquette that goes into it. Honor, too, absolutely. Most of those guys that do it, that's their job, and they follow a certain code of conduct in doing it.
I've got a drought-tolerant garden; I've got a company - crazy as it sounds, we make yogurt. There are actors who have to act no matter what, but I don't want to do it just for the sake of doing it.
No matter what else they're doing, women are also always nurturing.
I just love doing costume dramas; I am very lucky, as I see myself as a part-time time traveller.
I'm just kind of a music junkie. Whatever I'm doing at the moment is my favorite.
I was always excited about doing things with people that were ahead of their time, that were sort of out of sync with the rest of society.
And I haven't met too many actors along the way that haven't told me how much the show has meant to them. It's one of the reasons they say they are doing what they're doing, today.
If you asked a Singaporean, on the one hand they'll say, 'Let us do our own things.' On the other hand, when an issue comes out, they'll ask, 'What is the government doing about it?'
I can't imagine anything more worthwhile than doing what I most love. And they pay me for it.
Well can I just make a point about the numbers because people talk a lot about police numbers as if police numbers are the holy grail. But actually what matters is what those police are doing. It's about how those police are deployed.
I did children's theater when I was younger, and then when I was about 14 I started doing theater in New York City.
I don't come from a comedy background or a stand-up background, but I think that sometimes there's a misconception that an actor who works primarily in comedy is a comedian. There's nothing wrong with being a comedian, but I'm absolutely not that. I can't think of anything more terrifying than doing stand-up!
I came from a really musical family. I studied classical piano because my grandparents were piano teachers, but started doing musical theater at age nine in Fresno, California, and went to a performing arts high school. That was my life.
I've spent hours and hours doing research into Appalachian folk music. My grandfather was a fiddler. There is something very immediate, very simple and emotional, about that music.
There are performers who have built their whole career doing magic on TV and can't really perform live at all - don't really have jobs and skills.
My earliest memories as a kid was I would always try to make my mom and my stepdad laugh at dinner. Or make my friends laugh in class. And, I don't know, it's something I just really enjoy doing.
I want to be on a show that's as good as the one we're doing and that we get to make for many years.
I've now been doing this for ten years, and I actually got to skip a stage of going to casting directors, and now I meet with the directors, either for lunch or an audition room, and I still read sides; you're never going to get around that, but I'm not the best person to go on an audition.
Everyone reaches their point in time where either they die or they get sick of doing drugs. It started getting debilitating. I enjoy my music a lot better than my drugs.
I am interested in all aspects of filmmaking, so I have an opinion on every aspect, so sound design, score, cinematography, editing - all that stuff I have experience doing myself, so I had a very strong idea of what I wanted, and I got, for the most part, people that were able to articulate that idea, which was nice.
Like a lot of films at the end of 2008, they hit a wall with financing, which is why I moved back onto 'Stone.' In doing so, I had to let go of 'The Beautiful and the Damned,' to at least give them an opportunity to move forward with somebody else.
I've been doing a lot of music for films and television for quite a few years.
You are doing better than you think you are.
There's a lot of money in doing score music. You can get a chance to get nominated for an Oscar; I would love to get nominated again.
I might be doing a lot more theater, which is kind of what I love, but there's simply no time for.
I'm in an absolute frenzy towards doing as many things as I can that I want to do today. The rest can wait till tomorrow, next week, if I'm around we'll take a look.
I no longer say nice things about yoga. I was doing yoga so long before everybody else.
