I always wanted to be a filmmaker and became one through sheer single-mindedness. I came to filmmaking from a background in graphic design. I went to film school at Newcastle Polytechnic.
When I moved to Chicago, I was coming from a school that didn't have any arts in Alabama. I essentially came from a town where the arts didn't exist and the desire for education didn't exist and wasn't valued.
Angelina came up, and as soon as we said hello, I thought, This is going to be great. I'm really going to love doing this with her. And I did. And then I was very excited to do the movie after that.
The writing of 'Topdog' was a great gift. I feel the play came to me because I realized that my circumstances, while causing me despair and heartbreak, also held great possibility, if only I could see it.
As I look back on the last few decades of my life, I am struck by the good fortune that came my way.
I'd been a stepparent for about two years with a woman who had a child, and I came to realize I adored children and was good with them. So I was very happy when Anna got pregnant.
When I came back I had to realize that IC was not in a very good shape - all the much money that we had because of the huge Ideal success, was gone. I was very upset.
My big break was when I won 'Search for a Supermodel Australia,' and then I came second in the world series, and that was all good, but I was just having fun; it wasn't real to me.
In 1997, I was working with Greg Wilson of Red Ball Tiger, our ad agency at the time, when he came up with an addition to the famous slogan 'I guarantee it' that I was known for saying.
I think maybe I became funny because as a kid, I was a Jew in a town of no Jews, and being funny just instinctively came about as a way to put people at ease around me.
When Fargo came out, I hired a publicist for the first time in my life. I thought, if ever I was going to make it, that was then.
I love vampire stories. That's why I did the movie. Women especially were taken with that movie-even more so when it came out on video.
In the past I would self destruct when it came to love - I was immature, throwing myself into things but now times have changed, I want a relationship where you understand the other person.
I came to the industry with wide eyes and an open heart thinking I was going to make a few films that really meant something that I could pour myself into.
I went to L.A. to be Brad Pitt; now I just want to be Gene Hackman. I came to Nashville to be Kenny Chesney. I'd be very fortunate to be George Strait.
When I came out, I told my stepmother Gladys, and she just said she had known for years and was glad I wasn't lying anymore.
I thought it was all a flash in the pan. It wasn't until Broadway came along that I felt I had really made it.
I am perhaps unusual in that I came to 'Doctor Who' through the numerous novelisations and not through the television show.
'My Father's Eyes' is very personal. I realized that the closest I ever came to looking in my father's eyes was when I looked into my son's eyes.
I came up in the community center. I used to be physical director of the South Central Community Center in Chicago on 83rd. It's still there. It used to be around there when I was a kid.
Before I started Coffee of Grace, I assumed all coffee came from Latin America or Indonesia. I wasn't familiar with African coffee.
