I read Spider-Man, and that's how I knew about Wilson Fisk.
They say your childhood influences your tastes and interests, or your approach if you're an artist. So what you create, whatever you saw, whatever your childhood was like - it influences how you're going to end up.
When you're making the film, you don't really think the audience; it's only when you start editing that you really start to became aware of your audience because you're thinking of how you communicate these ideas, and how lucid can you be, and yet stay within the language you've established.
Writing about what happened to my brother and to my family was awful. It was hard to look back at how much suffering there was and at how certain bad situations were made worse by our decisions.
Donald Trump has shown an extraordinary ability to show an understanding how our economy works, to create jobs for the American people.
'Chronicle 2' has become this question of, 'How do we all make a movie that we all respect?' And that's true to what 'Chronicle' is. There's no one at the studio who wants to make a bad movie. They all want to make a good movie just as much as I do.
I certainly didn't reach out to my old assets and ask 'em how they're doing, although I would have liked to.
If I wanted to know what a certain future would feel like to me, I would find someone who is already living that future. If I wonder what it's like to become a lawyer or marry a busy executive or eat at a particular restaurant, my best bet is to find people who have actually done these things and see how happy they are.
A lot of folks I mentor ask me, 'How did you get there?' I tell them, you never plan on it. Do a good job and treat customers well, do the right things for the right reasons. Prepare yourself, but don't spend all your time worrying about it. Just do your job, and you'll be recognized for it.
There's not democracy in the workplace. I mean, through most of our daily lives, the idea of democracy is fairly nonexistent. And I think things work better when the people who have to work with whatever it is we're working with have a say in how it's working.
In '92, I got my first Broadway show as a performer - 'Crazy for You.' I was in the ensemble. In fact, I was in eight Broadway shows as a dancer. Seven of them were original shows. That's how I learned to create something from the ground up.
Things happen in your life, and then you can write something else instead of the same three topics - like, how many times can we write about the clubs?
Very often when you see families it's all perfect and neat, and parenting isn't like that. You do have constant negotiations. Things are ever developing and ever changing, and you constantly have to evaluate how you deal with your kids.
It just tends to be that the grass is always greener. If I'm doing a movie, I suddenly think, 'Oh God, I wish I could just get a play script I could get my teeth into.' If I'm doing eight shows a week in a West End musical, I think, 'God, how lovely it would be to be in a TV series right now.'
My kids have got to work themselves around my life, not the other way. That's how kids become brats, if you're there staring at them all the time going, 'Are you alright?'
You have to know how to score.
I'm very competitive, but I know when not to be competitive. I know how to have fun, but I know when it's time to get serious. That makes things a lot easier.
Unlike straight men, who have the luxury of being slobs because women usually expect them to be, gay men - whether preppies, fashion victims, or jocks - are thought to be more obsessed with how they look because they dress for themselves and, consequently, for each other.
You don't realize how hard it is to live on your own. But there's no mom to do your laundry, and make you dinner and to do things for you, and you don't think about little things like buying paper towels and salt.
You can see it on the Internet: There's an argument going on continually about, 'What is folk music?' And I don't really want to get involved in that. It's an endless argument, a 'How many angels can dance on the head of a pin?' kind of argument.
This whole celebrity racket, it's not really my bag. I don't really do that stuff, and I am not looking to get famous myself. I would love it if my characters get famous, my work was well known and appreciated. But I'm an actor, not a spokes model or a celebrity or whatever that is. I don't know how to be that.
Growing up, it was very clear that I was a member of a royal family with a potential function later on. The question was: when and how and if?
There have been times when I've been broke, and a job came along, and I've said, 'Yeah! Let's do it!' But I will never do something without having a feeling of knowing how to play it. I've been in projects that I felt terrible about afterwards, but I've always had something that sparked me while I was doing it.
I've always wanted to pull off 'No One is to Blame' by Howard Jones. I've done that a couple times in solo shows, but I can't figure out how to do that with a full band and make it work.
You know how when people lose their grandma or grandpa, people they say they're sorry? They do mean it, but... there's nothing to say. There's a void that cannot be filled.
I remember, when I was an up-and-coming comic, how annoyed I would be when the famous guys would show up and just take everyone's spots.
I saw the discrimination that was happening towards Middle Easterners, Muslims and other brown people who had nothing to do with 9/11. It suddenly felt like a duty of mine to talk about some of the crazy things that were going on and make fun of how stupid it was.
We're in Kentucky, dude. How many variations of Bevin are there? Many. Bevins, Blevins, Belvin, Belvins, I'm sure. Or Bevin even with an -eavin or... Bivin or Bivins. And we're probably all cousins if you go back far enough.
I love 'Victoria's Secret Sport' because what they do so well is the fit and how it makes you feel. They sculpt all the right parts of your body. Plus, there's so much to choose from - colors, prints, and cool details. It's dangerous - you want everything.
I don't stress at all. When other people say, 'I'm having a bad day,' I ask, 'How can you have a bad day for the entire 24 hours, or even 12 or eight hours?' Something bad might happen, but that can't make the entire day bad.
You know how most kids have posters of sports heroes on their walls? They gave me reams of the old news copy, and I had those taped in my bedroom. And I would practice reading the news.
I want to build a machine that can drill wells for water. With this problem of water in many places in Africa, we need to find a solution for how you can dig wells so you can be pumping water from deeper places.
You know how country music stars get an extra 10 years on their life when they go to Branson? Like you're washed up, and you go to Branson, then you can last another 10 years. That's what bashing the media does.
You can't take our people from Africa and put us in a diaspora and spread us all over the world. And we survived slavery - and we can't pass a test? ... And you're gonna tell me we can't learn how to write? Have you lost your mind? We are survivors. That's all we do is survive.
When people say, 'Who are you?' I'm a sculptor and a painter. That's how I define myself. The acting is fun, and I hope to leave behind a couple things in my life of dramatic integrity and art.
It seemed to me that the real philosophical breakthroughs of the 20th century were in terms of the understanding of language. What is language? Where does it come from, how does it work, what does it do?