Obviously, I want my kids to be happy, and I believe that they can be super successful at whatever they want to do, but don't make the successful part more important than the process of doing it. Especially if it's an artistic endeavor.
Sometimes I think, 'Why should I work out when I can spend time with my kids?' I feel guilty doing something for me.
I've always enjoyed searching for clothes. I like thrift stores and vintage stuff, and not so much going to Urban Outfitters. What got me interested is having to choose dresses for the carpet, and doing a lot of shoots with really cool clothes. I've gotten to try on a lot of things that I've liked, and some things that I haven't.
There are things I'm doing with 'The After' that would've never flown on 'The X-Files' and on network television, so it's more permissive. That's not to say that you want to abuse that. I think that a show like 'The X-Files' actually worked better as a network show with the restraints put on it, the censorship that was applied.
The U.S. is supposed to be a nation of second chances, but for the 70 million Americans with a criminal record, we're not doing such a great job. Even among those whose crimes were nonviolent and committed long ago, too many still bear a scarlet letter.
I'm not one to be like, 'What is everybody doing? Let me do that!' I just do what I want.
I'm an actor. I started as an actor. I started on Broadway doing 'Hair' and Shakespeare in the Park.
The cell phone companies add to the problem. Every one they give out, they get money for from the federal government. So they have an incentive to give as many away as possible. And that's exactly what they're doing, and they're making a killing.
My friends in Paris are writers, or something like that, whereas my friends in New York are doing cool stuff in finance and living very different lives. In writing, it's pretty solitary, so it doesn't really matter who's around.
I wasn't expecting two seconds of me on the medal stand to go viral after the Olympics. I came back to my room after the medal ceremony, and my dad said this picture of me doing a face I don't even remember making is blowing up.
I was never the class clown or anything like that. When I was growing up and doing theatre in Seattle I was always doing very dramatic work. Now I can't get a dramatic role to save my life!
I couldn't live on the singing at first, so I worked as a cleaner, in a launderette, in a garage, face painting and doing the windows of shops at Christmas, 'cause I had been to art college.
People ask me how I manage without a man in the same tone they might ask someone how they're doing with just one lung, but it's not like that at all.
Let the Latter-day Saints be in their homes, teaching their families, reading the scriptures, doing things that are wholesome and beautiful and communing with the Lord on the Sabbath day.
The notion of a writer sitting in a library doing research isn't what I want. The research I love doing isn't found in a book. It's what it feels like to rappel down the side of a building; to train with a SWAT team; to hold a human brain in your hands; or to dive for pirate treasure. Those are things I've done to research my stories.
I'm not really interested in doing a Bollywood film.
I get 100 e-mails a day from Americans who say, 'What you're doing is cool - can we work for you?' From Germans, I also get 100 e-mails a day, saying, 'You fat pig!' or 'You're a liar and a criminal!' I'm trying to change this.
It's quite rare that you find something that you can quite literally have an absolute ball doing, as well as the tough stuff and the difficult stuff and the pain.
I thought that there might be something unsatisfying about directing two Tolkien movies after 'Lord of the Rings.' I'd be trying to compete with myself and deliberately doing things differently.
It's concerning to me when people look at the course of education as just a means for getting a job four years later. If you're just doing this because it is going to lead to a 'good job,' you're better off doing something you're genuinely interested in.
You've got to be picky in this business - if you're not, then I don't think you have the option of longevity. You've got to be choosy and try and do something that's outside of the box and dangerous. I love doing stuff that excites me, gives me that adrenalin rush.
I'm kind of getting more excited about developing my own stuff, or getting involved early in projects and doing my best to make things that I care about happen.
When I started off in journalism, you knew there was an audience out there and that you wanted people to read what you produced. But it also felt like you had a limited ability to shape the audience, or to acquire an audience, for what you were doing. So you didn't really think too much about that.
I had begun reading earlier than most because my sister Emmy Lou, no doubt to keep me from bothering her, decided it was easier to teach me to read stories to myself rather than to read them to me, as she had been doing.
I can't write a novel without first really doing reporting. I don't even call it research; it's reporting. That process is very important to the granularity of my writing. I have to know what the reality is so I can be more convincing in the writing.
Learn to write the same way you learn to play golf. You do it and keep doing it until you get it right.
If I am running 100 yards, I should be cut. Because then I am getting beat. I do not need to be doing that. I need to be running 20, 30, 40 yards as fast as I can over and over and over at optimal energy and efficiency and speed.
I'm not going to sit for some painting. That's so 1800s. I'm not doing that.
I think the questions on the grit scale about not letting setbacks disappoint you, finishing what you begin, doing things with focus, I think that those are things I would aspire to or hope for for all our children.
I think when a lot of actors hear improv, they think of throwing a line in or doing a slightly different take.
It seems like a gross waste of time to continue our career predicated on the idea that we're going to divide opinion. What's more important is just doing something that you love.
My heroes were people like Jim Jarmusch. Scorsese was my god. Spike Lee was exciting, doing exactly what we thought we were going to do: personal movies based in, and about, New York. My heroes were all participating in an economic model that was collapsing as I was finishing film school.
Corporate career is like my wife, and writing is my girlfriend. My priority is the first but enjoy doing the second, as I have taken to writing as a stress-beater.
I can't imagine doing anything cooler or better than what we did on 'The Stage' and felt like we're firing on all cylinders.
I did a lot of acting, funnily enough, unprofessionally, as a kid. From when I was 10 years old until I was about 19, I was always doing little sketches with my friends, and doing different accents and voices.
I grew up singing in church. I've been doing that since I was 3 years old. Singing was a blessing for me to do.
