I make my films because I'm affected by a situation, by something that makes me want to reflect on it, that lends itself to an artistic reflection. I always aim to look directly at what I'm dealing with. I think it's a task of dramatic art to confront us with things that in the entertainment industry are usually swept under the rug.
Drugs, sex, booze, all the stuff that we wanted to do. The problem was that we didn't want to learn the top 40 'cause most of the music was awful and we had this other idea about what we wanted to do.
I think what happens is, people do just want to see you as a glamour doll that's put up on screen, but I guess it's how you see yourself.
I was paid $8 or $9 million for 'Evan Almighty.' I didn't want that money.
Saying what you believe others want to hear is, of course, a form of lying.
I don't write about anything I don't want to write about. I like to think I could write about anything pretty much that I chose to. I have been asked to write songs about specific things, and I've always been able to come up with the goods.
I don't think the American people want unilateral government control over the entire health-care system.
I'm not some cute guy who is trying to be successful off that. I really want the music to come first.
I always want to listen to people and receive good criticism, but I just don't have to answer to them; I have to answer to God.
I want to write with Taylor Swift!
I'm interested in the cosmos. I want to know what's out there and how connected we are.
The fashion world tells me how much they love my work, but they don't hire me very often. Tom Ford did, and he hated it. Naturally, he wanted to Photoshop away the imperfections, which is perfectly understandable. They want their vision.
I feel like I'll always be a brunette, that's just who I am, but I love that I can switch it up and be whatever I want to be.
I absolutely hate mowing the lawn. When I hear the mowers starting, I want to kill myself: it's the sound of death approaching. Hoovering's OK, but I never in my life wanted to have a lawn and certainly never wanted to mow one.
I fly an aeroplane, and I think a lot about how much I do not want ever to run into an optimistic air traffic controller. I just don't. I want a guy down there who's just waiting for the worst crash possible and petrified that it's going to happen on his watch. And then I feel safe flying into his territory.
I don't know what really makes a great musical or not. In the end, you write it, and you write it because you want to write it.
We should be open to a discussion on keeping guns out of the hands of the mentally ill. I don't know how that manifests itself, but I'm looking to get elected president of the United States. I just want to let people know I have an open mind about how we might - how government might - interject itself in a lot of the problems we have.
The working-class aspirations are worse now than when I was a kid - and it was pretty bad when I was a kid. Reality TV means they are being told they are no longer a working class, they're an underclass. Young lassies want to be Jordan or Jade, but very few aspire to be the next Germaine Greer.
I don't just want to focus on soccer, soccer, soccer. You're going to look back 20 years from now and of course you're going to remember the games. But I'm going to remember seeing my family in the stands.
The three-peat has never been attempted, ever, and for me, I think it will add to my legendary status. I want to become one of the greatest athletes ever to have competed in any sport, so for me, that's what it means.
I care for you. I want to make life safer and better for you.
My nature is that when I see abuses of power, I want to expose those abuses.
You want to be the pebble in the pond that creates the ripple for change.
I made a lot of good friends in Philadelphia and the last thing that I would want to do is dog anyone in that clubhouse. If I made it sound like that, it was a mistake.
I don't have a visa for the U.S., and I don't want to apply for one. And I don't want to fly for that long.
Twenty years ago my parents wouldn't know who the X-Men were, and now everybody knows that stuff. It means that deconstruction of the superhero is something you can do. All those movies have led to a point where we can finally have 'Watchmen' with a Superman character who doesn't want to save the world and a Batman who has trouble in bed.
Besides entertainment and action, I want to educate. You know, as a producer or director, we do have a responsibility to society.
I didn't want to look back in 10 or 20 years and say, 'Yes, I always wanted to write that piano sonata or that novel, but I never had time.'
Obviously, when I had the scare with the blood clots, I mean, that's the kind of thing that you don't want to have happen, obviously, and you worry about what it means for the rest of your career.
You've got certain guys that just want to be famous and then you've got the real musicians that just love playing music.
When I'm watching TV, I'm always drawn to those female characters who are doing something that I would want to do.
The funny thing about me is I'm kind of schizophrenic, because after four or five nights in a row of going out to parties, I just have to be alone. I hate people and feel like they're keeping me from what I really want to do, like write a fabulous novel, which I probably never will.
At times when I am myself sitting at a retreat, and at the end I get into my car to drive away, I watch my hand move forward to turn on the radio. When I can be mindful, I notice the fact that I actually don't want in that moment to listen to the news or hear some music.
It is all very well and it sounds very seductive to say we are going to have harmonisation of regulations, but for example the way that funds are distributed around the states these days, you are positively penalised if you actually want to have say a lower payroll tax or sort of conditions.
I considered obesity a disease. It can destroy you from within. It almost destroyed me, and I do not want that to happen to anybody.
I don't want to smoke on screen, as I will be sending a wrong message to my fans, and I appeal to my costars too, to avoid smoking scenes if possible.
