What I think of as 'freakonomics' is mostly storytelling around an idea - not a theme but an idea. I like ideas much more than themes. Themes are boring. Themes are, 'Wool is back,' but ideas are, 'Why is wool back?'
Germany was beaten after World War I, but it didn't take long for it to rise again as a much more malignant threat. The end of World War II was not to be a compromise; it was to come about from the total annihilation of the enemies' ability and will to make war.
You can be one inch from the national team and the opportunity to make so much money and a life out of it. That's why people hang on so long.
I had a friend in high school who badly wanted to make movies and would recruit me as an actor. It was always so much fun. I decided, I'm going to go to Hollywood and make movies, which is a thought I'd never had before.
It's crazy how loyal country fans are. I can't say enough how much that means to me.
I don't treasure things much - just people. And pets.
Luckily for me, people don't scream at me that much in my everyday life.
You get fed up watching shows with not much care and love, reality programmes where they put people in a house for a fortnight and film them doing everything, or where participants arrive after lunch and do the programme at six.
What we need is a slow time movement to gain control over time and an overhaul of work statistics to give a better perspective on all the work being done and how much of it is undesirable, unnecessary, and demeaning.
Nixon is fascinating because he's our most alienated president. Everybody felt that they never knew who he was - that's palpable in the histories. His face is so cartoony that he's become this cartoon figure. I never really related to the romanticization of J.F.K., and I knew too much about Reagan to idealize him. Nixon falls in between.
For me, and this may not be everybody, but because I do love country music so much, there's such a feeling of home in Nashville, especially because it's such a small town. You bring up one song, everybody knows who wrote it, everybody knows their mother and what their cell number is, and all of the stories.
It is a joy to be an artist, but it doesn't mean very much unless that work is somehow useful in some way and contributes to others.
I was an actor for a little bit. That's when I started to understand fiction - and that one of the great things about fiction is that you're dependent on the characters as much as they're dependent on you.
Music to me is so internal. It's physical and it's emotional. Whereas fashion is so much about the external that it's almost like a break. It's not inner turmoil. It's total escapism.
Oh my God, Zumba is the greatest invention ever for women. I like to exercise, though I do nothing consistently because I get bored and impatient. With Zumba, you're dancing, you're moving your hips. So much fun.
Working out has always been a stress reliever for me. I don't know if it's so much vanity as it more just keeps my mind from going crazy.
We ought, therefore, to lessen the price of food to our manufacturers, and place them more on a level with the manufacturers who have cheaper food, and also much lighter taxation.
The results of this survey are shocking and should be a wake-up call to men and women that drinking and smoking too much not only gives you a bad headache in the morning but can affect your ability to start a family.
When I was a younger actor, I was pretty much solely motivated by validation. I just wanted to be told I was good and handsome and a part of the gang. It was pretty simple animal-social stuff. I don't care as much about those things anymore.
With roasting, you've really got to bring your A-game. I hate to admit it, but I probably think and obsess more about the roasts than my own series. Because there's so much attention focused on the roasts. It's like the 'Super Bowl' of comedy. Everybody is going to talk about it. Forever.
Biology sets the context, and that is critical, but obesity still boils down to whether a person eats too much or exercises enough.
Scotland is a much lighter and more fun place than I thought it was. I was miserable when I was there. But it wasn't Scotland's fault. It was my circumstances. I was - I hate to say the word humbled - but that's what it felt like. I was wrong about this place. This is a great place full of very fun people.
I've definitely been in relationships where I've given too much, and I've been in relationships where I haven't given enough. I think it's a work in progress. I have to find that person where it clicks.
I will always love the Clash, because I loved them so much when I was fourteen, and I love how you can start a conversation with almost literally any dude about the Clash.
I know I'm British. I haven't spent much time in the U.K., but my parents are British, my family heritage is British, so if I wasn't British, what would I be? I am British.
Enchanted partnership begins with the conscious understanding, on the part of two people, that the purpose of their relationship is not so much material as spiritual, and the internal skills demanded by it are prodigious.
For 24 years of my adult life, by choice I weighed well over 200 pounds. I say 'by choice' because I have never 'accidentally' eaten anything, so when I choose to eat too much, I have chosen to weigh too much.
'Revolutions' was beyond my wildest dreams. I just really enjoyed it so much visually, the action and then the story and the characters, the beauty of that. The love in the film really inspired me.
I don't think I'm a political songwriter as much as I am just a political person. I think it's in my fabric.
Doing a play, you have a little bit more time, obviously. You rehearse for a month before you get up in front of people. It's a totally different energy. With film, TV, you want to try to capture lightning-in-a-bottle moments. I don't try to rehearse as much with that stuff, because you want those sparks of something to come out, if they do.
I think my mother characters have changed a lot since Sasha was born, just because I understand what a hard job it is now, and I'm coming at it from another angle - like you just love and care about this person so much, and just want to protect them from everything.
I've never considered myself an actor; I get much more immediate satisfaction singing. If you sing good, people clap. On television, you never know whether you've done well or not.
I'm no longer going to play thugs or debauched cops that I can't possibly make complex characters. I'm bigger than that. I owe too much to too many good people at the Goodman, Arena and Playwrights Horizons.
Obviously, I haven't really progressed that much at my craft.
My research process doesn't vary much. I do a little reading to establish a timeline and decide how I'm going to approach the story.
I began to despise Lenin, even when I was in the first grade, not so much because of his political philosophy or practice... but because of his omnipresent images.
