When you know who you are, you know who you are. That's the real dangerous thing in Hollywood, because they all want to create you and mold you.
Of course, when strangers see me, they're star-struck because of who I am, but my friends take me as a friend because I'm their friend - not because I'm a movie star.
I knew what I wanted to do when I was 13 and I had to go through four years of high school to get out. That's a blessing, because I never had to lay on my bed staring up at the ceiling going, 'What am I going to do with my life?'
On a transcendental level, a film is not going to be better or worse because there's a prize behind it. The work will be what it is, with or without a prize.
Oh my God, I used to get heartburn and all sorts of indigestion and stuff because I didn't feel well. And you know, I sit a lot because I write, and I gained a whole bunch of weight. My vanity just got to me, and I was like, 'I've got to do something!'
Multiple mergers can be challenging because people come from different backgrounds.
I didn't want my records to sound like anybody else, and when I've got my guys in the studio, I have a language with those guys because we work together every day. A lot of times, you bring in outside guys, studio players, whatever, and they're great musicians. It's just that they don't necessarily play the way I want it to be played.
There have been articles saying that all women need to read my book. I ask, why not all men? In fact, that would be even more valuable because we women want to sit down with men and tell them - this is how we feel, this is what we go through.
People will like to say that 'Eastern Promises' is brutal, but the only reason they say that is because the scenes stick with them. They are realistic. They are in-your-face and you see the consequences. It's not a bunch of quick editing cuts.
I wrote 'Lights' a long, long time ago. And I expected it to be on the album, because it was - I wrote it with 'Biff' Stannard. And he wrote every single Spice Girls song and every single pop song of the 90s, basically. So I thought, you know, I was really lucky to work with him, but I didn't think it would be a big song for some reason.
Right now I'm in 'Twilight' and I go around to signings and there are people screaming and crying, and it's so surreal. I know that when this is over in a month or two and whenever 'Twilight's no longer relevant, that doesn't live on for me. It's because of this. It's not very often that this happens for people.
I wanted to go to NYU because I thought that was my best path to glory. I figured it was safer to move into the acting world in New York while I was living in a dorm.
Nobody else knew what to do with me because big women are old.
People have had certain assumptions in the past about Conservative governments, partly because of some of the things that happened in the 1980s, and partly because of the tone of some of the debate in the 1980s that appeared to say public spending on the arts was something you might want to progressively reduce.
Goethe died in 1832. As you know, Goethe was very active in science. In fact, he did some very good scientific work in plant morphology and mineralogy. But he was quite bitter at the way in which many scientists refused to grant him a hearing because he was a poet and therefore, they felt, he couldn't be serious.
Culture changes because of musicians and actors and actresses. There's a responsibility there. You may ignore the responsibility. You may choose to be a bad role model. But, you are a role model nonetheless.
We're the roughest people in the way we play and live, and that is because Americans come from people who all got up one morning and went 5,000 miles, and that was a time in the 19th century when it wasn't so easy to do.
Anytime you turn on your own concept of God, you are no longer a free man. No one needs to put chains on your body, because the chains are on your mind.
Before 'Scandal,' I was actually cast in two other pilots. Both went to series, but I was fired and recast. For both, it was because they wanted me to sound more 'girlfriend,' more like 'hood,' more 'urban.'
It's very difficult to talk about religion in Iran because religion has gotten so mixed up with politics.
The problem is that I work in more than one genre. It's impossible for me to aim for a single one because, for me, comedy is mixed with tragedy. That's very Spanish, the way in which comedy and tragedy are inextricable from each other.
I had this very strict rule when I began auditioning that I wasn't gonna do a thicker accent, because it was like, 'I can't tell if it's supposed to be funny because he talks funny.' And now I feel like there are certain characters that I could play that could involve doing a thicker accent, as long as it's specific to that character.
I stuck with a mustache because... do you know Magnum P.I.?
The ultimate first date? Something that is completely out of the ordinary - go crazy, because first dates are always a little awkward, so do something a little extreme.
I think we should be proud of the fact that our face has got lines, because at least that means we have lived.
We first started to rent old VFW halls in Philly or whatever; we rented kegs and did parties and played our own music. We had to find a way to do it because nobody else was helping us, and I think now it's important to keep those dialogues happening, those parties happening.
I was an only child with a lot of time to kill. I suspect a lot of writers are only children, or only children become writers because it's a way of being alone.
If you have a character that doesn't have anything wrong with him, there's nothing funny about it. The idea of the straight man is very important. But I'd rather it be somebody else, because it's not as fun.
If a novelist tells you something she knows or thinks, and you believe her, that is not because either of you think she is God, but because she is doing her work - as a novelist.
We are looking to brands for poetry and for spirituality, because we're not getting those things from our communities or from each other.
Hopefully, the guys will work on a 'Conchords' film because the world deserves it. That's up to them, because we're all keen to do it. It's about finding the time and the right story. All I can do is encourage them and then wait for the phone call.
I ain't just collab-ing with anybody. Because I don't care about making friends. I got enough friends.
All politics to me - Indian or white - is an illusion preventing us from being authentic because we're communicating through something that isn't real to us.
I'm not a writer; I'm an actor. My job is to take whatever character I'm given and - especially because I have the responsibility of being a black actress, and I know young black girls are looking up, and everyone's looking to what's on television - to just try to give whatever character I'm playing as three-dimensional a portrayal as I can.
One of the nice things about a favorite pop song is that it's an unconditional truce on judgment and musical snobbery. You like the song because you just do, and there need not be any further criticism.
I pretty much try to stay in a constant state of confusion just because of the expression it leaves on my face.
