My parents were Northern Ireland Labour party people. We read the 'Guardian' and the 'New Statesman,' listened to the BBC. The house was full of books. We didn't get a television until 'That Was The Week That Was' started. There was nothing to do but...
My role on television is one of helping people reexamine the assumptions that they hold. I regard Dr. King. You would never hear me get up and speak without in some way, shape or form, referencing, Dr. King.
Criticism is something that you have to take, regardless of what you do. Even if you go out there and try to make the most vanilla, non-offensive TV show possible, people are going to criticize you for doing that. It's just part of the game.
I don't feel the obligation to have a big explosion in the first 20 seconds so the audience doesn't turn on another channel. We are trying to make something that looks like a feature film that was bought for television and I think we are succeeding.
The once inviolate frame within which programs or commercials were displayed on television - always separately - has been violated to a pulp. Program content is seen increasingly as a mere backdrop on which ads are posted like billboards on a fence.
You do have to wonder how Jack Bauer, maverick hero of '24,' can stay hidden for so long when no matter where he goes, he always seems within range of a TV camera. Or six.
When not deeply engaged in creative activities, or numbed out by the TV, I felt empty. My heart hurt. I often felt hollow or as if I were some sort of wispy ghost, barely existing.
I did not see myself as a leading lady. I thought I was really funny-looking and I would never be the lead, and I certainly would never do film or television. I wanted to do theater. I wanted to be the grand dame of the American stage.
If you swap it about, do television, theatre, film, you can go on surprising yourself. The problem is you get employed to do something you've already done. They want something from that sheep pen of performances they've seen you do.
You're a professional. You don't need for me to break a film down for you. If you want to stop the guy you're playing, they pay you millions of dollars. You get you a TV and break the player down yourself.
I hate these reality TV shows where people walk off Big Brother and think they're A-list celebrities when they've done nothing in their lives, it really does my head in.
My style can't be held within a pixel medium. Like, it needs to be performed in a living, breathing space. People need to have all their senses ready to take on my comedy, and unfortunately, TV alienates at least their sense of touch, taste, smell.
I joke that I learned the essentials of storytelling from Hanna-Barbera, but I pretty much did. That kind of television is what enamored me as a kid, and that's what really got me hooked. You could say that's where it all began.
Here we are in the 70's when everything really is horrible and it really stinks. The mass media, everything on television everything everywhere is just rotten. You know it's just really boring and really evil, ugly and worse.
I've got quite a big gay following. I played a lesbian prostitute in the TV series 'Band Of Gold' but I think my following really grew when I played one in the film 'Imagine Me & You,' with Piper Perabo.
I just go at my own pace and I like control of the TV and I like to decide when I take a shower and wash the dishes and stuff like that. So I don't know who would want to live with me to be honest!
I never understood who all those people are behind the actors! When you see them on the red carpet on TV, you go, 'Why does that person need such a large entourage?' And then you realize that every single person there has a role to play.
I can't do anything I want to. I mean, I can't have my own TV show. I can't have my own movie. But within my little world, nobody tells me what to put on the albums.
When our video of 'Smooth Criminal' came out, suddenly we started getting all kinds of offers. We were getting calls from TV shows like 'Ellen DeGeneres' and from record labels.
TV and the press have always functioned according to the same sets of rules and technical standards. But the Internet is based on software. And anybody can write a new piece of software on the Internet that years later a billion people are using.
Every show on television has a downward trend because there are so many more things to watch. You can only deal with what is the benchmark of a hit series and 'Survivor' clearly remains a hit series.
