Those are the kinds of roles you can really sink your teeth into. Characters with an edge. When you're playing someone who's sort of seedy, there's less limitation, there's so much space you can travel. There's room to move in.
We take so many of our freedoms for granted nowadays - I can travel where I like, I can do any job I want - but I think chivalry has been lost a little bit.
There is nothing better than playing a scene with John Cleese or Maggie Smith. It's electric. But I don't think I'm the sort of person who needs to have an outer ego in order to produce something. I realised that through the travel programmes.
When I travel round the country, people can't place my accent; if there's someone in the audience, they'll be like, 'You're from Philadelphia', but everyone else will say, 'Where are you from, California?' I get England sometimes - bizarre!
I travel Europe every couple of weeks. I just came back from London, Holland and Denmark. Every nation on this planet has its issues with race, and I am not sure if everyone has figured out how to deal with it.
When I was younger, my father was in the Foreign Service and we lived in Nigeria, Panama, and London, but for the most part I grew up in the South and D.C. I got the travel bug as a little person and I've bounced around a lot.
Could I say that the reason that I am here today, you know, from the mouth of the State Department itself, is: I should not be allowed to travel because I have struggled for years for the independence of the colonial peoples of Africa.
Painting keeps me occupied in those moments when travel can be aimless and even disorienting. Mainly it is a way to register at least some of the new impressions of a foreign place, when its thrilling barrage can sometimes overwhelm you.
While human space travel is daunting, machines - with their indefinitely long lifetimes - could travel the galaxy. It might make little difference to them that bridging the distance from one star to the next could take hundreds of thousands of years ...
For some reason, comedy just comes easily to me, and I feel like I can do it. I don't have any doubt. When I work on drama, there's always a sense of 'Did I find this person's truth at the bottom of this?' And it's hard to tell sometimes.
I didn't even know how to judge 'Die Hard 1.' It's not anything I know how to judge. I'd never seen an action movie. I'd never seen a Sly Stallone movie or an Arnold Schwarzenegger movie or a Charles Bronson movie. And that is the truth.
When we say 'less fortunate,' we generally mean the poor rather than the disabled, who actually are less fortunate. In truth, the poor are generally 'less fortunate' only in terms of genetics. They are certainly not less fortunate in the amount of he...
As a comedian, I am obligated to tell you the truth, my truth. To share with you my beliefs, my perspective. And I think that we forget sometimes that that's the oath that comics take, that we will go up and share everything - the irreverent, the sca...
Liberals should not overplay this weapons of mass destruction card, because you want me to tell you the truth? Most of us are not going to care if they don't find these weapons of mass destruction. It's enough for a lot of us to see those kids smilin...
I find awards frivolous. When I began my career, I was told that I deserved an award for a certain performance, but then I couldn't turn up on the day of the show. Then I was told that the award went to someone else. That's when I realised the truth ...
Ghost of Christmas Past: There was of course, another Christmas Eve with this young woman. Some years later. Ebenezer Scrooge: Oh please... do not show me that Christmas.
I tend to splurge on fancy dresses because I always think I'll get a lot of wear out of them, but it's false logic. You should really spend more money on the things you wear every day, like jeans.
To act alongside a TV idol of mine, Peter Krause, was phenomenal. I watched him in 'Six Feet Under,' I watched him on 'Dirty Sexy Money' and I'll carry on watching him, and I've been lucky enough to be a part of that world with him.
So you have to just be really careful and make sure that when a deal comes along, that it's like the right deal for you... not necessarily the most money, because you have to pay the record label that back in like record sales and stuff.
It was a lot of fun being a child actress. It suited me. I don't think it suits everybody, but I was in it because I had a passion, not because my parents wanted me to make money. If other kids want to do it, and they really like acting, go for it.
I keep my distance from politics. Lots of money has been offered to me for campaigning over the years, and I have always refused. I used to be very politically aware and very opinionated, but I don't want to involve myself.