My family has very strong women. My mother never laughed at my dream of Africa, even though everyone else did because we didn't have any money, because Africa was the 'dark continent', and because I was a girl.
I was raised on songs of poetry like Simon and Garfunkel and Cat Stevens and Neil Young, etc. I love those old songs probably the most because they hit me so deep down in my core.
If you're a speech writer for a president, you don't really see all that much of him because there's so many layers between you and him. But with a vice president, it's different.
We all need to figure out what's right for us because nothing about life is one size fits all. Even for an Olympian, that's for sure. And such discovery starts with you paying attention - to yourself.
I really, really liked shooting and doing the scene with Emilia Clarke and Peter Dinklage at the end of 'Winds of Winter,' when she gives him the Hand of the Queen. Because we shot it very simply. We felt like we had managed to do something that was visual but really was a very intimate scene between two people.
Christians - whether as a priest, a nun, a minister, whatever - have just been stereotyped to death. You try to be a model of kindness and love and forgiveness to all those around you, because you have received kindness and love and forgiveness from God through Christ. That's what Christianity is.
I only like doing live telly. It's great because you go in and do it and then go home. No edit, no retakes.
We must not stop speaking the truth to the radical parties because voters will follow those who speak the truth, and European politics will grow more radical, which is in nobody's interest.
Just because you've got a hit doesn't mean you've made it.
And I know this happens because I took economics, and I'd explain it to ya, but I flunked that course. Not my fault. They taught it at 8 o'clock in the morning. And there is absolutely nothing you can learn out of one bloodshot eye.
The main reason I did 'Captain America' was because I wanted to get out of my own head and stop taking my work so seriously.
I don't regret leaving 'Homeland,' because I wanted to work with the Bhatts. The dates were clashing, and I had to make a choice.
I like playing Vernon Dursley in 'Harry Potter,' because that gives me a license to be horrible to kids. I hate the odious business of sucking up to the public.
There are many critics who invite me on their show, and I have told them that when my film releases, you will give it one-and-a-half star rating. That's fine. There's no issue because stars will matter when I'm planning to open a five star hotel. When I'm making films, I don't need stars.
One of the pillars of 'Cyrano' is recreating a love story and, like any archetype, these great stories tend to be captivating, among other things, because they are made of those universal things that move us.
It is true that you can say that death is natural, but it is also natural to fight death. But if you stand up and say this is a big problem, we should do something about this, that makes people very uncomfortable, because they've made their peace with death.
When you're young, you don't especially think of yourself as being young. You're just alive and everything's interesting and you don't think of things in terms of age because you're not conscious of it.
I love magazines because they're so dispensable, and they're so quickly consumed. In that way, they're quite honest. They're unashamed about how small an amount of time they're trying to keep our attention.
Probably to me the greatest singer, female voice, is Billie Holiday. And one of the most moving for me, I don't know why - maybe it's nostalgia, maybe because my life is one of constant partying, whatever.
In 1962, my injury wasn't because of violence; I just kicked the ball and it happened. And that was OK because Brazil won; I didn't have any difficulty in accepting that. I still got a medal because I'd played two games.
There's nothing like sitting in a completely quiet room, and then the strings start up. It's like when you go to the cinema - the first two or three minutes of any film are amazing. Because the screen is so big. The scale. Directors can pretty much do anything for those first few minutes.
Each Disney princess is unique in their own way, but Moana is especially close to my heart because she's Polynesian.
People around me like me the best when I'm depressed because I'm a bit more passive.
I think I had the most fun making a movie with 'Dedication,' just because you knew that it was a passion project for everyone involved. We had X amount of days to shoot New York in the cold. No trailers. Just sort of kind of doing it guerilla style in a way.
I don't want to look exactly the same in everything I do. And if I'm not identifiable, then that can be a blessing or a curse. But I'm fine with it. Because at the end of the day, I'm still working, and I'm enjoying what I do.
I've worked on my game, and I don't think it has any holes, no weaknesses. I say that with humility because you can always work to get better. But I run inside, I run outside, and I'm just not a guy you have to take off the field for certain packages.
At that moment of realization I knew that I had been blind because I had wished not to see; it was only then that I realised, at last, that all these dead men, French and Germans, were brothers, and I was the brother of them all.
Some people like the same thing forever, but I don't know. We kind of, like, listen to loads of different stuff, and our attention spans aren't good enough. So there was a bit of frustration when you're, like, having to play the same thing all the time because we play all, like, loads of different instruments.
Anybody that's asked, I've counseled that they not expand Medicaid eligibility. I've been critical of any expansion because you know what Washington does. It promises something for a finite period of time, and then it leaves you on the hook.
It was so much fun to work with the cast on 'School of Rock'. I was a little nervous because it was my first acting gig, but it was such a great experience.
I'm really happy to be me, and I'd like to think people like me more because I'm happy with myself and not because I refuse to conform to anything.
The thing that upsets me the most is the entitlement of people that will stand with a flag and say to some other people that they need to go back to where they came from. When, in fact, they also would need to go back to where they came from, because you need to go all the way back to the beginning.
My first novel is loaded with food references largely because my cupboards were bare, and I was writing hungry.
This house I grew up in was built in the 1800s, and the back yard was like a cemetery. Naturally, I grew up in an environment where ghosts and supernatural things were very unnerving to me, because my brothers and I dealt with it on a daily basis.
Cable television is such a part of our society now. Oftentimes, the shows are really good, and you're just like, 'Well, it's worth sitting through the sex and violence because the narrative is so great.'
I can't relate to skinny, perfectly sculptured, tanned men singing about gold chains and Ferraris because I'm not that way.
