It was like that for the first six months after 'E.T.' was in cinemas. I'd go out and get mobbed. I was a shy kid, and being approached by adults all the time just freaked me out.
Every time I walk down one of those red carpets, you think I'd be used to it after all these years, but it's like it's happening for the first time.
I first decided that I wanted to act when I was 9. And I was at a very bizarre prep school at the time; to say 'high Anglo-Catholic' would be a real English understatement.
I ran for my first office at 25 against an incumbent city councilman. I took 55% of the vote and became the youngest councilman in the area at the time.
I've been writing for a long time. I sat down to write my first novel in the middle of March of 1982.
So the first thing that went on was to decide... trying to find a time when we could get reprisal raids out.
My father played with Air Supply, Yes, B.B. King and even Sheryl Crow when she first started out, so I've sort of been around the industry for a long time.
When you're a kid, your first five or six years, you converge all the time. School is about training that out of you, especially universities.
I followed him at the time and thought he was hysterical. He was the first serial killer, a new kettle of fish, because we didn't have the detection techniques in those days.
My parents were working in a hospital in Memphis. But I didn't live there for any length of time that I remember. The first thing I remember is the town in Mississippi that I live in now, Charleston.
In our first season we had a 22 rating. Today Seinfeld, a hit show, gets a 15. Lost in Space actually had a bigger audience than Star Trek got at that time.
John Ventimiglia, who was on 'The Sopranos,' was in my first acting class and we have been friends since that time. Alec Baldwin was in my class back then, Sean Young and Andrew McCarthy.
The first year was hard for me to deal with. The second year was a little bit easier, but still difficult. It took me five years to get it out of me. It was a difficult moment, a difficult time.
Many readers know my work first through 'Housekeeping,' simply because it was my only novel for a pretty long time.
When I first was conducting as guest conductor in Europe 25 years ago, I would propose doing American pieces and grudgingly it would be accepted from time to time.
I was 15 or 16 when I first saw 'Once Upon A Time In America,' so I was quite young, but I was completely blown away.
Reagan was extreme. Beginning of his administration, one of the first things was to call in scabs - hadn't been done for a long time, and it's illegal in most countries - in the air controller strike.
At the same time, the Reagan Administration assured that the main elements of policymaking were in the hands of competent loyalists, thus assuring a successful launch and a highly successful first year.
By the time my first album was out, I had been out in Jamaica three or four years, but I had hits out at that time that were bona fide hits.
It's the same each time with progress. First they ignore you, then they say you're mad, then dangerous, then there's a pause and then you can't find anyone who disagrees with you.
The main thing for me is I really like strong endings. If there's a strong ending, you can take more time in the beginning, your first act can be really quite different.
