I felt like I had never really heard of a story that reflected the stuff I was going through as a mom. I came up with an idea for a story about motherhood that I would want to read.
I would go visit my mom on Sundays, and my brother was working on stuff. I'd go in there and sing a little melody, then we started working with words and the next thing you know it was just born organically without really trying.
I grew up watching movies and being amazed at the animatronics you'd see in stuff like 'The Dark Crystal,' and all those kinds of movies. So, I'm always enthralled with how they can make it all work, behind the scenes, with the visual effects.
If you think about movies that are adapted from books, they never feel like enough. There's always too much cut out in the end. You either make a five hour movie or you leave out stuff that should be in there.
I didn't know anything about movies or movie stars or the Academy or anything. I was just a blank sheet of paper. I was totally ignorant of all that stuff. I never went to the movies, didn't know anything about the movies.
So, I was sitting there and I watched 'Paranormal Activity' and I was like, 'Boy, white people do dumb stuff in movies.' So I was like, 'Why don't they just leave the house... What if paranormal activity happened to a black couple?'
I'm one of those weird people that tends to not do the extras and listen to the commentaries and stuff on movies, although I do think they are fascinating and interesting - I'm just so worried that years later I wouldn't remember anything!
I really want to meet and work with JJ Abrams. Everyone talks about what a nice director he is, and he has kids and stuff, so he sounds really awesome, not to mention he makes awesome movies.
I learned a lot about 3D animation from and with my dear friend Michael Hemschoot of Workerstudio. Taught me that I want to play more with animation and image manipulation. Fun stuff!
I'm often reassured in a bizarre - perhaps perverse - way when I find in the archive stuff that contradicts what my assumptions have been. That's interesting and exciting.
I grew up watching stuff with Jim Carey, Robin Williams and Sandra Bullock in them. I've always been attracted to the actors who are a little more off beat.
Americans are always mortified when I tell them this, but in England, it's a tradition to put your plaques and photographs and awards and gold records and stuff in your bathroom. I don't know why.
It's all about fair trade, and helping people eating locally grown stuff. We're recycling everything. We're trying to tour in the most conscious way possible, environmentally and socially.
At 'SNL,' I wrote political stuff, but I never felt the show should have an axe to grind. But when I left in '95, I could let my own beliefs out.
We live in an increasingly sophisticated world that makes it difficult to make simple comments on stuff. There are too many people on both sides of the border who are taking advantage of circumstances and the situation.
I'm the kind of person who can hear that stuff. If you sing along to the radio and you're not going to sing unison with the melody, but find the harmony, I find that pretty easy to do.
I get less and less sketching done at shows, as more and more people want to come up and talk or get stuff signed. Most requested character? Probably Catwoman.
That's the way I try to live. I think it's the only way for human beings at this point in our evolution as souls, where everyone in their lifetime is going through stuff.
I used to empty the studio out and throw stuff away. I now don't. There will be a whole series of dead ends that a year or two down the line I'll come back to.
What one does in the studio is to pose a series of problems to oneself. I've got to look for some deeper meaning, for some reason for this thing to be in the world. There's enough stuff in the world.
A lot of the biking sequences in the beginning, like going down the steps and over the ramp, I of course didn't do any of that stuff. I wish I could have but I didn't.
