There are loads of sociopolitical, racial, class and future-planet situations that really interest me, but I'm not really interested in making a film about them in a film that feels like reality because people view that in a different way. I like usi...
On television, I have watched countless athletes from different countries, sports and Olympics stand proudly at the top of the podium and shed tears. They symbolized the Olympics for me because Olympic medals represent all of the hard work and sacrif...
I want to challenge myself to see where my limit is and experiment with a lot of different films. A lot of artists from Asia focus too much on their Asian background. I don't want to let go of my background, but to be a success in the U.S., which is ...
On 'Sufferer,' I'm talking about the younger generation that has no other option for success than to find a gun somewhere. I try to appeal to them: 'I know you a sufferer, but it doesn't mean that you can't or shouldn't expect any better.' It's a lot...
I used to write things for friends. There was this girl I had a crush on, and she had a teacher she didn't like at school. I had a real crush on her, so almost every day I would write her a little short story where she would kill him in a different w...
Growing up, I was watched by my parents and strongly critiqued. Instead of saying they loved me or showing physical attention, they would joke that I had a Roman nose - that it was roamin' all over my face. Teasing was their way of showing love, but ...
One of my favorites is chilaquiles. It's corn tortilla chips in a simple, brothy tomato sauce with a little chile for heat. It's wonderfully homey. It has irresistible crispy bits and I love to eat it. And you can play around with it - add chicken, s...
I love dressing up. I like going out and buying some crazy stuff. I like stuff that's new, innovative and weird. I just pick out stuff that is unique and anything that I'm really diggin'. I don't really care if it's kind of out there. That's what I'm...
The people who I grew up making music with, we've all grown up and become successful in different ways. My manager supported me since I was 16 and believed in me as a musician. He's been there since Day 1, and there's so much to be said about doing s...
The one big difference between the sexes is that I think women are always looking for love. We want more security and to be heard. Men don't care if you hear them or not; they just say what they have to say and leave it to you if you want to listen. ...
I've never had a very quiet voice. I tried in choir to make it smaller, and it just didn't work out. And I listened to a lot of soul music when I was growing up on my own accord. But I was mostly into Mama Cass and Gladys Knight, and they all had big...
I grew up poor in crappy situations... various crappy situations. What kept me sane was reading and music. I had so many different literary tastes growing up, be it fiction like Stephen King or Piers Anthony or non-fiction like reading Hunter S. Thom...
When I was a young student, I only listened to foreign music, mainly rock music and hard rock. Then I surprised myself by discovering ethnic music. Now I like to listen to music from different places, and in many situations. Even when you work, some ...
Usually I'm pretty myopic. It's hard for me to multi-task, so to speak. If I'm in a show and I'm creating a character, I'm just completely into that. It's really hard for me to do anything else like write music. I have to sort of shut down different ...
Oh, I think country has changed tremendously. I think country has totally changed. Country music when I was a kid was Hank Williams. If you put Hank and Elvis together, there wasn't that musical difference. But as the Beatles showed up and the Englis...
I'm a huge fan of a lot of different genres of music, and I really felt like somehow I had been pigeonholed a little bit - maybe of my own doing - and in a way where I felt like I was sort of falsely defined. What my music was being called wasn't rea...
I don't feel there's a difference between the real world and the fairy-tale world. They contain psychological truths and, I guess, projections of what the culture that tells them thinks about various things: men, women, aging, dying - the most basic ...
I think we roll our eyes at older men with younger women and go, 'Oh, he's going through a midlife crisis and he just needs a young hot body.' That's the cliche. But an older woman with a younger man - it's almost judged the way different religions j...
Since Brooks Brothers is a 189-year-old company, there are plenty of references and inspirations I can draw from their archives and catalogs. The wearer of Black Fleece may not be all that different from mine, in that I imagine that it would be someo...
I can't remember a time when my mom didn't work. She has forever been on the move: a go-getter. When my brother Adel and I had a paper route as kids, my mom would get up before us at the crack of dawn to drop off the Washington Post at different corn...
I remember there was a turning point. I think it came right after 'Forrest Gump' when I turned down the cover of 'Vanity Fair.' That was blasphemy. You just don't do that. And I remember after that not getting a couple of movies that I really wanted ...
