I'm going to be acting all my life. But, while doing that, I will try to avoid the trappings of fame.
I try to keep in mind that it's a long journey. It's not a race. It's about staying focused, continuing to do good work, make my family and community proud; that's all I really want to do... and pay my bills.
We have to try to do our best in every game with great ambition, because we must always have the right ambition. But at the same time, sometimes you have to compliment your opponent. You must be honest and accept the result.
Acting is something I love. It's a great craft that I have a lot of respect for. But I don't think it's any greater challenge than teaching 8-year-olds or any other career. In my life, I try not to make it more important than it is and I just hope that rubs off on the people around me.
People that have known me for a while tell me how they see me grown as an artist and as a writer. I think that this comes with continuing writing each day. I try to write as often as I can and explore more while I do it. I feel more comfortable with opening up and telling more of my story to everyone.
My father was a drill sergeant, and I've always had that mentality drilled into me of 'you've got to do better, you've got to do better.' I just try to listen to the characters. That's what works for me.
I do listen to other music though, and try to pick up what is good.
I try to just make what I want to make or what I would want to see. I try not to think about the audience too much.
It's a part of my lifestyle to be healthy and eat healthy. I don't feel like I need to be like, 'You can't have this. You can't have that. You have to have this. You have to have that,' because then I feel like I will get inconsistent. I indulge when I want to, but try to be healthy every single day, too.
If I have to play an obnoxious character, try to find a redeeming feature of him. The most obnoxious people in the world were people, and they had had a reason for doing what they did. So you try to find that and let the obnoxiousness come out.
You don't have to try to hurt people and be angry to be an athlete.
When I sing, I try to communicate certain emotions, and that's the voice that comes out.
I just like to switch things up all the time. Like when it comes to singing, I try to find a different character for each song.
When I act, I try to understand the character, why she's behaving like that.
Every time I read a script, I see the movie in my head, and I try to see the best movie in my head because everybody interprets the movie differently.
If, you know, all your life you're making films or whatever, and somehow along the way you lose meaning in whatever you're doing when you're making the films, they're just not the same as they used to be to you. That doesn't mean your life is over; it just means maybe go try to live a different life.
You try to get to know your character as best as you can before you start filming - what's written and not written.
There can be a progression to the dream; there can be steps to it. When you dissect any successful person's story, it's really rare that it was all or nothing. It's steps, and I just try to remind myself of that in terms of the things that I want; it's like, everything is a step, leading you to where you need to go.
When I'm good at something, I always try to be the best at it and claim that throne. Even in school, I never let anyone say anything to me; I would always be the smartest.
They are deceptively simple. I admit that. But for me, all my life I try to simplify things. As a child in school, things were very hard for me to understand often, and I developed a knack, I think. I developed a process to simplify things so I would understand them.
As for my stuff, I'm just doing guest verses for other people's records. I try to stay recording, because if I don't, I get rusty.
I don't have one role that I'm particularly fond of doing, and I don't really look for it to differ all the time, but I will try anything and do anything. If it's a role I connect with, I'll go for it, no matter what's involved.
If I dress up, I try to wear something that's still a bit me, but then I regret it when I see that everyone else has dressed up more and looks amazing.
Suits are looked at more now as a business thing which is kind of a shame. If you're not wearing it just for work, you should try and trick it up a bit.
What I try to do is the art of building, and the art of building is the art of construction; it is not only about forms and shapes and images.
My two interests are spirituality and politics. I would mesh them in some way; maybe try to figure out the politics of spirituality, or the spirituality of politics. Or maybe come up with this really crazy naive solution for the end of civilization.
It's not good for me to see things while they're being edited. I can be highly critical, so I try to stay away.
There's a blockbuster side to Knopf, whether it's P. D. James or John le Carre or our best-selling books. We try to sell our writers as aggressively as those houses regarded as commercial with a capital C.
God helps those who help themselves. You have blessings. You have gifts. You have passion. You have drive. Get after it; go in there and do something. Try and make every day count.
I live my life and play my music, and I don't really seek out other people's approval or accolades or things like that. I try to do what's true to me, and how it all comes out is fine.
I'm pretty well-rounded. I can do most of my tricks left and right, in both directions. I try to be smooth and confident. But it's still developing. I'm still trying to find my own personal touch in the way I ski.
Writing is a marvelous adventure and very labor-intensive: those words run away and try to escape. They are very difficult to capture.
Simply, if you're working with good material, then it's right there, and you don't have to try so hard as an actor; you don't have to do so much. Just let the material sit inside you and let it come out. Just say the words. That was the main thing that I learned from doing Aaron Sorkin's work - say the words, and everything else will happen.
I'm barely reading the 'New York Times!' But I do try to keep abreast of things.
I'm still fighting really hard to get any role I get. If it's comedy, I go for the laughs. And if it's drama, I try to tell the truth, and try to play the real stakes of whatever scenario the character's in.
We try, we fail, we posture, we aspire, we pontificate - and then we age, shrink, die, and vanish.
