I carry Yeats with me wherever I go. He's my constant companion. I always can find some comfort in Yeats no matter what the situation is. Months and months and months go by and I know I need to switch to Shelley or somebody else, but right now Yeats ...
I've built an 8-track studio in my house that's virtually identical to what they used at Abbey Road, and I also own the 16-track set-up that Led Zeppelin used to record 'Houses of the Holy.' I'm interested in producing, but I'm mostly recording my ow...
I'm remixing an R.E.M. track called 'I've Been High' from their last album, 'Reveal.' It's a beautiful song, but record execs didn't put it out as a single because it didn't sound like the R.E.M. we're used to. So I asked Michael Stipe if I could hav...
When I was 14 years old, I went on location to film 'Mrs. Doubtfire' for five months, and my high school was not happy. My job meant an increased workload for teachers, and they were not equipped to handle a 'non-traditional' student. So, during film...
I was a student of Sanford Meisner for three years at the Neighborhood Playhouse, and I studied with Lee Strasburg for five years and became a member of the Actors Studio. What I studied came right from the horse's mouth. My students have a lot to le...
I went to a lot of theatre. My parents were very involved with the performing arts. I went to nightclub shows when I was a little girl. We went to Florida and we would go to the Cocoanut Grove down there. We'd go see Lena Horne, Jimmy Durante, Sophie...
I've taken my boys to the house I grew up in. Taken them to the site of Ebbets Field, where the Dodgers used to play. They go to all the Dodger games, and they play Little League ball. I have infused them with New York spirit.
The streets made me. They stay at me. There's nothing that's gonna take away from my legacy. I'm sorry. It is what it is. I'm dying this way. With the crown on my head, nobody can take nothing away from me. It is what it is. I am who I am. Bottom lin...
Barbra Streisand has always been an inspiration for me. I admire Jennifer Lopez because she's been against all the odds, and she's made such a name for herself, and she can put her name on anything and it sells, and I admire that about her, but Barba...
Honesty works against you in the entertainment field. I try to be a journalist and a documentarian, but that doesn't mean that people are going to embrace it at the moment. The point is I'm leaving the mark of my hysteria and the political hysteria, ...
Working on 'Austin and Ally' has been an absolute dream! We literally have fun every single day! Whether it's scaring each other or singing together or just hanging out in each other's dressing rooms, the cast and I are super close! I feel really luc...
When I was a little kid, my mother and I used to watch the 'Golden Globes' and I would dress up and she would get sparkling apple cider and we would make a tray of hors d'oeuvres and watch it together. And I would get up and make a pretend speech.
I quite like that people tend not to know my name. I remember being at the Cannes film festival for 'All or Nothing.' I looked very different in the film - I had a little greasy bob and no makeup. I went to a dinner after the screening, and everyone ...
I got invited to what's called the Gifting Suite in Toronto. I had the day off, so I thought I'd go and see what's what. You come out laden with wonderful stuff. Apparently, if you go to the Oscars, you get given things like iPads. Not that I'm in it...
Well, I think they're all basically the same story. Every culture in the world has them. When you strip it down and analyze it, it's the young man or girl who goes through a trial or ordeal and hits a very low ebb but manages to get guidance from a M...
I never thought about becoming a professional singer, but I am in touch with Bono about releasing a musical movie. It will be about an Irish band during the '70s who are looking for fortune in Las Vegas. I should play the singer of the band but I don...
Whoopi Goldberg looked like me, she had hair like mine, she was dark like me. I'd been starved for images of myself. I'd grown up watching a lot of American TV. There was very little Kenyan material, because we had an autocratic ruler who stifled our...
As human beings, we aren't as individual as we'd like to believe we are. And I think that's what makes acting possible. Despite the fact that I have not experienced something, I have it in my human capacity to imagine it and to put myself in someone ...
When I was younger, I was almost too afraid to admit that I wanted to be an actor. I didn't know any successful actors in Kenya, so I felt like I could get away with going to college to study film more easily than I could with saying, 'I want to be a...
I was so full of joy, the happiest kid. Things changed. I don't want to talk about it. I needed attention. I was pathologically shy. I'd climb the highest tree or try to ski off the highest mountain. I'd get into fights. I wanted contact. I'd hit som...
Like so many other kids with special needs, I have been bullied. Kids in elementary school made me eat sand, and those same boys would walk behind me, teasing me. Finally I had enough, and I told them to grow up.
