The thought of eating rabbit and squirrels doesn't appeal to me. And that was on our table quite often as a kid. In your uppity restaurants, they serve a lot of rabbit. But I just can't help but think of Peter. And deer, I can't go there, because of Bambi.
I didn't go into this business to do action because I'm a classically trained actor. But I'm good at kicking and punching.
We always felt like we were throwing a party for our friends, regardless of the size or the place, because we actually were throwing a party for our friends. We've always had a very tight knit community.
I want to say a very sincere thank you for this welcome home - it is a wonderful welcome home. It is the place to where I return and where I will always return because it is of Galway that I am.
My role in 'Legally Blonde' was really rewarding, because I had so much fun working on the movie. I've had really rewarding experiences on tiny low budget films that you'll never see but where I had a cool time creating characters as well. I love almost all of the characters I've played.
I suffer from manic-depressive disorder, and I've chosen not to take medication for it. Because of that, every once in a while I go through manic episodes and really depressed episodes.
Because I just loved to spend two years of my life in the company of Andy Kaufman and other characters.
You really don't do anything else in your life; it's a very little bubble that you grow up in. And you have to live in that bubble because of the intensity of the sport.
There's a particular sensitivity required to be an artist, and a certain vulnerability, perhaps, and also, somewhere between, you're in your body a lot, too. It's much more physical than one would imagine because I think it's the body where the imagination lives somehow. I do feel the imagination isn't just in the brain up there.
When I auditioned for my high school band the band director was excited because my father was known to be a great musician. When he heard me, he said 'Are you sure you're Ellis's son?'
I think people are isolated because of the nature of human consciousness, and they like it when they feel the connection between themselves and someone else.
I want to do something that is unique, that has its own legs. But it's very hard because if you start veering off, if you get too crazy, then people won't know what to make of it. I want to please my audience, too. I want people to like what I do.
But Tommy Lee Jones is just smooth. He's just the real deal. I'm captivated by him because there's so little of that in Hollywood, and he just embodies it.
Nonfiction filmmakers were afflicted by two problems: one technical, the other spiritual. Technically, they did not have the equipment to do the sort of work I had in mind. Spiritually, they didn't care about the work because they'd been mistrained.
Perhaps I have written fiction because everything unambiguously expressed seems somehow crass to me; and when the subject is myself, I want to jeer and weep.
I love Robin Wright's character in 'House of Cards' because she's a bona fide villain. She's a not-nice person in a believable way; you can see her working in the world.
Women are more difficult to caricature than men - partly because beauty is more difficult to caricature.
To re-embrace what I once loved about music has been a warming process for me, because it's a good, earned feeling now.
They said that Etta James is still vulgar. I said, Oh, how dare them say I'm still vulgar. I'm vulgar because I dance in the chair. What would they want me to do? Want me to just be still or something like that? I've got to do something.
Whereas money is a means to an end for a filmmaker, to the corporate mind money is the end. Right now, I think independent film is very confused, because there's excess pressure in the marketplace for entertainment to pay off.
I think that the wonderful advantage we have in the film of being able to cast a girl as young as Emmy and which we couldn't do in the theatre of course because no girl of 16 or 17 could sing 8 shows a week, couldn't sing two.
Our only competition in the theater is boredom, because if I'm bored with a play, if I'm revolted by a play on stage, with the Broadway prices, especially today, I'm going to walk out and not come back and pay that price again.
Here's my rule: You always want to pay cash for your own books, because if they look at the name on the credit card and then they look at the name on the book jacket, then there's this look of such profound sympathy for you that you had to resort to this. It really is withering.
For example, Americans seem reluctant to take on Shakespeare because you don't think you're very good at it - which is rubbish. You're missing out here.
Going to college helped me, because I had four years in the conservatory program, which is close as you can get to a professional environment. It's like all day.
Comedy is much more challenging, because you have to have the same level of belief but you have to make people laugh, and that's definitely a challenge.
I think, over the years, the way my daughters' friends have embraced me has definitely made my daughters appreciate me more. Of course they take me for granted because I'm the one who's there, but listen, I don't want to be 'the cool mom' who lets things get out of control.That's not my lookout.
Being in school is the best place to be if you are an athlete because you can structure your own time.
I always love to look at something that I couldn't make, because I feel it's enlightening. It means you are not invincible: you can respect something and look up to it and go, 'Wow!' It's a skill that I don't have, but I can understand the merit of it.
I've never been able to say I've been influenced by a list of artists I like because I like thousands and thousands and I've been influenced in some way by all of them.
Whenever I go to work I wear a jacket and a tie, because I'm inherently quite lazy, and my books take so long to do, and my publishers don't bug me, so it's so easy to fool yourself into thinking you're working harder than you really are.
I'm lucky because I have so many clashing cultural, racial things going on: black, Jewish, Irish, Portuguese, Cherokee. I can float and be part of any community I want.
Certain scripts require an ensemble cast. I'm absolutely fine with that. I will not deprive myself of the chance to be part of a good film because of insecurities or fear of losing my market. But my role must be well-defined.
It felt very fresh to me, and it feels very contemporary - this idea that conflict's not being about good and evil and not necessarily being black and white. If you dig deep enough, you'll often find that people do things because they feel that they have to as opposed to because they are evil.
Every day, there is a person following me, taking pictures. It's bizarre because I'm just going to the gym or getting a smoothie. I don't have the time or energy to be constantly put together all the time, but that's real life.
New York may be the city that never sleeps, but Shanghai doesn't even sit down, and not just because there is no room.
