I think naturally, if you're an actor, there's a high level of assertiveness that you need to have to survive this business. There's boldness in being assertive, and there's strength and confidence.
It's truly gratifying to see my films reach beyond a familiar public, to get a chance to move new audiences. It's nuts. It's extraordinary.
I had a long period of writing what I think of as 'save the world' novels. 'Fledgling' was a chance to play.
No one realizes how beautiful it is to travel until he comes home and rests his head on his old, familiar pillow.
In conversation, humor is worth more than wit and easiness more than knowledge.
Humor is rare in science fiction... there's so little of it that it automatically reminds you of other heroes with that acerbic humor when you find it.
In high school, I began to dig my way into Ethiopian history, and began to understand myself as a young man formed by multiple narratives.
Too much detail can bog down any story. Enough with the history of gunpowder, the geology of Hawaii, the processes of whaling, and cactus and tumbleweed.
The reason why there is more pessimism about technology in Europe has to do with history, the use of databases to keep track of people in the camps, ecological disasters.
If you look back through history in the United States, there have been very few landslide elections. Half the country always voted for someone else.
I think that many people in history who had power were bumped off because they had power.
I learned much more about acting from philosophy courses, psychology courses, history and anthropology than I ever learned in acting class.
I'd seen my dad on stage, and that was fine, but the real excitement was - that was my dad. Even now, when I see his films, he's always my favourite person in the movie.
I get asked to give stuff to my dad. I'm, like, 'I'm not gonna pass your script to him!' You know? My dad's my dad. I'm not his agent.
I mean, my dad's a television producer, and I knew I could get a job as an assistant or a reader with one of his friends, but it wasn't exactly what I wanted to do.
My first outdoor cooking memories are full of erratic British summers, Dad swearing at a barbecue that he couldn't put together, and eventually eating charred sausages, feeling brilliant.
Nowadays, if you have a mustache, people look at you like you're crazy. But when I was growing up, I never saw my dad without a mustache.
I take almost no notes when I write. I have one notebook - this old green leather notebook that my dad gave me a decade ago.
My dad's a Republican. My dad's my mentor. When I was 18 or whatever it was and I decided to register to vote. My dad's Republican, so that's what I decided to register as.
In the original draft I was 27 and Peter was 55 in the script. That's not the same as a guy in his 40s and a dad in the end of his 70s. It's a different point in both our lives.
My dad was always busy. You would pop round for a cup of tea, and within minutes you would see him walking past with a step-ladder. He was always fixing things.
