What I loved about 'Summer' was that they were these four bright kids with a wonderful future. In a way, she was the one with the brains, and then you have the beauty queen and the jock and the introvert.
The play is on top of me all the time, and I am constantly thinking about it. Even when I leave the theatre, I'll mumble the lines to myself or think about the way the character walks or holds himself.
I always say this to people: 'If Shaq can be in the NBA for 19 years and dominate for 19 years using his body, why can't I be in the music industry for 50 years using my brain when my brain is way stronger than anyone's body?' I have to have a successful record company, more hit records. I want to dominate the game.
I don't say: 'can't do that', 'won't do that'. I've never thought in that way about work.
I think sometimes I guess you see records, say you want to get there and use that as motivation. In a way, it's kind of cool if there is a possibility to rewrite history and be up there with the greats of Olympic history.
I haven't scoured Dixie out of my voice. But I don't think that the books that I have written... have really in any way been Southern in character.
Movies have been my way to get out of my backyard. I'm trying to let people know that movies change people's lives.
Every few decades, we have an opportunity to make a drastic change to the way we live our lives. We get a chance to design the building blocks of our daily routines, the infrastructure that will support and accompany us for the years to come - from the trains and trams we ride, the offices we work in, to the energy that powers our homes.
I relate to that idea of not necessarily seeking out 'interesting female roles,' but 'this character, this role, who happens to be a woman, is interesting to me, and I relate to it in some way, so I'm just gonna go with my gut and see where it leads me.'
What I am telling you is that Matta had a way of making you feel comfortable and that's probably why he had nine wives because he made them feel comfortable and then uncomfortable later.
The Big Band Era is my era. People say, 'Where did you get your style from?' I did the Big Band Era on guitar. That's the best way I could explain it.
For hundreds of millions of Americans who believe in God, prayer is our bridge between Earth and Heaven, our way of opening our hearts to the Lord. Through this intimate relationship we find peace and guidance.
To my way of thinking, an actor's course is set even before he's out of the cradle.
The unions and the auto companies have been unable to put a deal together that fundamentally restructures the industry. It needs to get done. The only way it's really going to get done is in bankruptcy court. They should have done it six months ago they should do it now.
Cate Blanchett is somebody who I could watch do anything. I love what an extraordinary chameleon she can be. There's something about the way she bends and transforms that feels otherworldly to me.
You pick up some fans and a handful of haters along the way.
I'm only interested in being a good actor and in being remembered for my best films, not for the way I look. But it seems inevitable in this line of work that I have to care about the way I look without getting obsessed about it.
That helped me to keep in touch with myself and to keep in touch with this really quite extraordinary language and literature into which I had pushed a little way.
Cute is when a person's personality shines through their looks. Like in the way they walk, every time you see them you just want to run up and hug them.
Everyone in my family is a risk taker in his or her own way.
The way to my heart is by being truthful and spontaneous.
You're trying to write about something that's sacred. You're trying to bring the seriousness of life and death to it, and you're trying to find a way to dramatize it, and you're trying to give language to it, which is inadequate. But it's important to try.
You need a commitment which is long term and a commitment to leadership, because that's the only way you build excellence.
I think every once in a while country has lost its way, but found its way back. It's always going to drift away from the traditional side, but then find a way to return. There's room for all kinds of influences be it pop, blues, gospel or whatever. But I will always say that I think we need more traditional country music coming down the pike.
There is nothing more joyful to me than hearing a live audience laugh. Especially when I planned it that way!
Do not let your grand ambitions stand in the way of small but meaningful accomplishments.
There's a pressure to conform to particular images, and it feels a pretty exclusive pool of body image or facial image that is considered appealing. And in a way, that feels like pre-judging what an audience might actually want.
You have to show violence the way it is. If you don't show it realistically, then that's immoral and harmful. If you don't upset people, then that's obscenity.
I like reading books with both hands, with my heart pumping, with blood on the page. So I'm interested in people who make stuff, and I'm interested in the lives that make the text. To read a book or watch a movie any other way, to me, personally, feels like a waste of time and misapplication of energy.
Mick Jagger has produced some great films and brought us stories about the music industry that have changed the way we think about how music is made. I never thought I would actually call him my boss, let alone meet Mick Jagger or have any reason to say my name in the same sentence as his.
Sometimes it is better to begin the journey, to get under way, then it is to sit back and wait until such time that you're convinced that all conditions are perfect and that there'll be no surprises along the route.
I don't want anything to get in the way of me and my singing. I want my mind as clear as possible.
We've gotten a long way on missile defense. We know how to do it. We know how to take down incoming warheads, but we need to do a lot more work in order to be - to deploy a system that'll defend the United States against those kinds of limited strikes that might be possible by a nuclear armed North Korea or Iran.
When you have a character to work with, you carry them around in a strange way - they make you look at the world in a different way.
Your journey never ends. Life has a way of changing things in incredible ways.
I had been writing for about twelve years. I knew pretty well how you could find things out, but I had never been trained in an academic way how to go about the research.
