I used to write my books at night when I was a freelancer with no children. I used to really work in huge spurts - I could turn around a revision in two weeks, I used to be able to write 10,000 words a day. It's like, 'Wow, what happened to that?' Th...
I'm lucky enough to be able to make films and so I don't need a psychiatrist. I can sort out my fears and all those things with my work. That's an enormous privilege. That's the privilege of all artists, to be able to sort out their unhappiness and t...
I've never really found inspiration for story ideas in the news, but I'd say it certainly affects our lives in so many ways. I would say that certainly the stories of the day appear in the work - I just have never gone so far as to say, well, this pa...
I used to watch the old 'Flash Gordon' series on TV, and it was thrilling to rocket to the planet Mongo every week. But after a while, I figured out that although Flash got the girl and all the accolades, it was really Dr. Zarkov who made the series ...
I've said this before, but after 'That '70s Show' ended, I solely wanted do films that inspire me, and to work with people who make me better. I wanted to just surround myself with people who I think are better than I am, whether they're actors or di...
I read a blog about this young filmmaker in the Philippines who made a short film, and one of the characters in the film reads my novel and then starts discussing the novel with someone. The idea that my book can inspire another artist and be part of...
I was always telling myself I could handle a more complex role, I could handle something bigger and more interesting than the work I was doing. But I wasn't demanding that of myself. At a certain point, I realized it was never going to come my way un...
Those three years on 'Loving' were instrumental in helping me move through the next few years of work, where it was hit or miss. I was on series that would get canceled, then I would be a movie that wouldn't come out or do as well as I hoped. You lea...
When I was growing up, I wanted to be a house painter like my father, but I was always screwing up when I went to work with him. I had a talent for knocking over paint and painting myself into corners. I also realized fairly quickly that painting bor...
Whatever our bedtime was as kids, we could stay up an extra half hour if we were reading. My parents didn't care as long as I was under the spell of a Stephen King or a Douglas Adams. Now I read in bed. I read at work. I read standing in line. It's l...
I don't find myself interesting as a person and the details I find boring, quite frankly. You could sum it up in a few words or sentences really: came from nothing. Self-educated. Luck. Energy. Curiosity. Ambition. That's it. Nothing at all can illum...
We have people from the Middle East, from Asia, from all over the world that are coming through the southern border. Some are coming to work. But it's a porous border that would allow terrorists, al Qaeda and other entities to come in this country wh...
Neil Gaiman has reached a masterful stage in his writing where he deserves his own adjective, which could be extended to younger writers following in his wake: Gaimanesque. His work, while variegated, exhibits a unity of vision, voice, and tone that ...
I was a bartender in New York and I overheard this girl saying she made $3000 doing a commercial. A kid at work told me, 'Hey, I know this director and he'd really like you!'. So I walked into this guy's office and was like 'I was thinking maybe I co...
I've taken Saturdays to be the day I pull back completely. I do things that are more creative, and I've actually found that helps me when I get back into work to be more thoughtful, and I truly believe that feeding your creative soul is really import...
The cottages erected by farmers or by landlords are now, one and all, fit and proper habitations for human beings; and I verifly believe it would be impossible throughout the length and breadth of Wiltshire to find a single bad cottage on any large e...
You work with every actor differently. It's like if you're a mother, if you have children, some children need more discipline. Other children, you back off of a little bit and let them be. It's the same way with actors. Some actors need a lot of hand...
When I wrote the opera, I made a deal with myself that for at least an hour a day I would work on it, even if it meant just sitting on my piano bench, staring into space and thinking about it. It's about keeping it regular, like your bowel movements ...
I think my characters with my fingers, I think my characters with my guts. But when I say I think them, that is what I do, I feel them with the sympathetic neurons and I work out with my brain what it is that I am trying to write about, or I can't do...
If you have the feeling of choice, if you feel free, you will be better off. And when I say better off I mean that if people feel they have control over their lives, they call in for fewer sick days from work. They have a lesser probability of having...
As you grow older, it's harder to stay fit. Every day you wake up with pain, muscle aches which you don't know you had. I have to work harder on me than I used to when I was 18 years old. It takes me longer to recover now.
