That's also why comedy and horror are my two favorite genres of film to write, because you get these outbursts of emotion from people, laughter and shock, and it's really thrilling, and I like to be thrilled.
I didn't pass the scholarship exam for Oxford because of poor mathematics.
My mind was always very cluttered, so I took great pains to simplify my environment, because if my environment were half as cluttered as my mind, I wouldn't be able to make it from room to room.
The hardest thing on 'Palo Alto' was letting go because I kept working on it, trying to make it better.
I worked on 'Happy-Go-Lucky' for seven-and-a-half months, and I'm in it for two minutes - largely because Sally Hawkins turned left instead of right.
Obviously, doing TV and doing theater are completely different because they're two totally different mediums. On stage, you worry about your voice and how you move physically. On TV, something like an eye twitch is what they could be looking for from you because it's so contained.
Free speech and freedom of the press are under attack in the U.K. I cannot return to England, my country, because of my journalistic work with NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden and at WikiLeaks. There are things I feel I cannot even write.
I love movies that make me cry, because they're tapping into a real emotion in me, and I always think afterwards: how did they do that?
Being in a wheelchair for 30 years. I'm not whining about it because I don't dwell on things I can't do anything about, you know. I never really think about until somebody mentions it. I did take a bullet.
You cannot get me to be disloyal to a friend. You just can't do it. Loyalty is a part of what I live by. I didn't say I was going to be loyal to my friend because he was right. I'm going to be loyal to my friend because he's my friend.
Live records of mine are very painful to listen to because you always think you can do it better. I don't think I have a single favorite one.
Let me tell you, if you're ever making a decision and the principle reason you'll do it is because of money, then it is absolutely the incorrect decision.
'Swimming Pool' was a very important moment for me because the character was written for me.
The word processor is a better tool than a quill pen because you can do so much more with it, but on the other hand, what you have to say and how you say it is the ultimate determination.
In secondary school I was floating - I wasn't passionate about anything. I did a little sport, but it was pretty joyless because the competitiveness was too much to bear.
I have no deep-seated desire to be famous; that's not what's driving me, so if it's something I don't want to do, I don't do it. Maybe it's stubborn, but any choices, if you don't like them, yell at me, because it for sure was my bad.
Of course, it gave the studio an enormous power, because I don't know any other place who had that skill with images to communicate with. And the need of these kinds of images are even greater now than they ever were because we are losing our life symbols.
When I switched to screenplays - 'cause I had done musicals and plays - the first assignment in film school was, you have to write a silent film. And it's tremendously helpful to learn how to do that because dialogue can be a crutch. If you can master a silent film, you're golden.
I love the live performances and Las Vegas. I also like making films that are being discovered by another generation. Having been a teen idol of the '60s is great because you realize you left your generation with a smile and good memories.
My grandmother, who was simultaneously a woman of manners and verve, fended off marriage proposals until she was 30 because she was having too much fun to settle down.
People assume that because you are on TV you must be a millionaire, but unfortunately it doesn't work like that.
Somebody made the point with regard to President Obama that, because he tried to do so much so fast, so extreme on health care, on energy, just run down the list, he went to... the fringe elements of his party to satisfy their demands.
It's weird, because usually if you're British and you go to America you play baddies; but I play naughty people here and goodies in America.
When a kid can understand that a word can mean two things, there's some real thinking going on. They have a vested interest in finding out what a word means, because it's the punch line to a joke.
I cannot say who is better between Messi and Ronaldo. Because they are different players. Both are superstars.
Some people will lie to you because they mean to. Others will do it to tell you what you want to hear.
Globally, manufacturing jobs are on the decline, simply because productivity growth has outpaced growth in demand.
I think a lot of people think it's easy to just post stuff. They think it's the easy way to fame nowadays, but it's been hard. You have to film the video, which takes forever because I'm super picky about all my takes and stuff. Then you have to edit it and upload it, and doing that three times a week is very, very difficult.
The only time I had what you would call life-threatening fear was when I was on the Moon. Towards the end of our stay, we got excited and we were going to do the high jump, and I jumped and fell over backwards. That was a scary time, because if the backpack got broken, I would have had it. But everything held together.
You can obviously roam in public, but you can't do that with complete abandon. At the back of your mind, you are always worried if someone's watching you. But then, it's something that comes with the job profile. People approach you because they like you, and I don't see it as a hassle. It's a blessing.
Being with my family is very important to me, and touring is very important to me, too, because it's who I am. It's what I do.
I don't believe in revenge. When people are bullies it's because of a deeper-rooted issue - either their family life is tough or they're being bullied by someone bigger than they are.
The reason that war is such a fascinating subject for writers is because it's a revealer. Put a bunch of people in an adrenaline-fuelled, life-or-death situation and their fundamental behaviours are exposed, the scrim is taken away and the motivations behind each personality come out to play.
I've had wonderful collaborators. They're very different, just as actors are. Working on a show with Nathan Lane is different from working on a show with Chita Rivera. It keeps you on your toes because it's different every time.
At school I was always taller than the rest of my class, and because I was an only child, I was comfortable with adults but shy and awkward with other kids. I was quiet, bookish, and in spite of my size, hopeless at sports. In short, I was different. And even in the earliest grades, I got pounded for it.
Growing up in this post-apartheid era, the first generation of teens in South Africa living in this new democracy, I often found myself feeling different. I was often the only person of color in an otherwise all-white school. And within the Indian community, because of my training with an English acting teacher, my accent was very different.
