It is not easy to get parts in mainstream films for most people of color. Hollywood and British writers are not writing parts for us, or the directors are not interested in casting us in parts that are color-blind.
When I started out modeling, there weren't casting directors and there weren't stylists, so you just dealt directly with the designer. We were all much closer back then.
I went to Cal Arts and AFI, and I worked on 'Bonfire Of The Vanities.' I got this grant from the Academy to be Brian De Palma's apprentice director. And it was such a harrowing, disillusioning, awful experience.
With acting I am being led by the script, other actors, the director, etc. But with songwriting I feel it is much more self reliant and allows me to be in the creative experience without being as dependent on others.
Actually I'd had a certain amount of experience in Europe in the inter-war period, as a banker, and I was also a member of the Board of Directors of the International Chamber of Commerce.
Blockbusters run the mainstream industry. We may never again have a decade like the 1970s, when directors were able to find such freedom.
I lived with this tremendous fear of failure because my father was a playwright and a director, and I think he did a couple of things as a child as an actor as well, and he... he failed, basically.
My dad's a lighting director. Growing up in Hollywood, I was around the entertainment industry all the time. I knew I'd end up in show business in some capacity, eventually.
It was always my dream to be a director. A lot of it had to do with controlling my own destiny, because as a young actor you feel at everyone's disposal. But I wanted to become a leader in the business.
I have the highest respect for stars and auteur directors. But I don't want to work with people who only invite me to the preview. We want to be in the collaborative movie business, not the financing one.
I am a sensitive writer, actor and director. Talking business disgusts me. If you want to talk business, call my disgusting personal manager.
A well known director wouldn't take the chance on casting me for an American role after he discovered that I was English. Some time later, he expressed his regret that he hadn't taken the chance with me.
'Ashes of Time' was my third film, and as a young director at that point, it's not very often that you have the chance to make a big martial arts film, so of course I jumped at this opportunity.
But it's cool working with female directors because I'm a girl, so you do relate to them more. You can talk to them about other stuff like clothes and all that.
It's cool for me because I'm a director, but I'm also a teacher. I'm a lover of cinema, and I love working with people who are hungry and have the energy to really do better work.
The Dead was cool, It's a great horror story. I went to the casting director of this movie and talked to him, then they called my agent and had me come in and read for it and they wanted to use me.
I choose my work very carefully, always for the script and the director, and I don't think that's going to change. My work is like a house. It's built on very strong poles.
My guess is that if they now choose to change of director for every other film, it's just because you can't really change the formula, you can merely try to film it your way.
So I started to learn Russian and I was one of those probably way too eager, annoying young actor kids who was trying to change all my lines to Russian, much to the dismay of the director and Nic Cage.
I had a role in 'Crossroads' when I was about 21, and then I went on to perform in 'Small Change' and then 'Piaf' in the Donmar Warehouse, London, and it was when I was there that some casting directors spotted me.
During my nearly five years as director-general of WHO, high-level policymakers have increasingly recognized that health is central to sustainable development.
