When I was 4 years old, my brother and sister died of hunger, so I achieved my success through confidence, self-motivation and my hard work.
When 'The Shadow of the Wind' became a success I had already been a working writer, I'd been through the ups and downs, I'd seen how it worked.
My parents are very proud of my success but still worry, as I'm in a profession where there is no guarantee of work. They have always supported my decision to go into acting, but there have been tough times work-wise.
I got my degree. More importantly, I got a key to American opportunity. That's who we are - a nation that rewards ambition with opportunity. Where hard work can lead to success, no matter where you start.
It was far more fun than work doing those shows for all those years, we all loved each other and loved going to work, we all understood how fortunate we were to be in that place, to have achieved that success worldwide.
I joined the Wildlife Conservation Society, working there, in 1995, but I started working with them as a student in 1991. I was appointed as a teaching assistant at my university because I accomplished with honor.
I was training to be a lawyer... I was president of the law society at Glasgow University, and my bass guitarist was my secretary of my law society; the lead guitarist and writer worked at the law firm that I worked.
I really think the mind of someone who hasn't been welded into place by their work or studios or actors or this whole society is a wonderful mind to work with, so I'd like to do a big picture with an unknown director.
I've always wanted to work with dogs, so in high school, I worked at the Humane Society for a little while. I honestly think, even today, that would be the other career I would go into. Somehow I would be involved with animals.
Whether you're working in corporate America or you're a journalist, construction worker, a teacher or an actor - we're all trying to keep working. If one job is ending, you look for another job. When 'Psych' ends, I will be looking for another job.
I worked as a teacher in the public school system in New York City for several years, and I was a victim of the layoffs, you know, in the mid-'70s. And then I worked as a sales engineer for a company in New Jersey that was selling industrial filtrati...
If one of my heroes comes to me and says, 'Do you want to work on something?' I just say, 'Yes.' I don't ask for details; I don't expect to get paid anything. I just love working with my heroes.
The odd thing is, I don't consider what I do work, because it's what I love. But it is also an enormous amount of pressure, and you have to work an enormous amount of hours.
There are people I've worked with who have never understood how fashion works. They keep saying they love fashion, yet they've never actually grasped that this isn't yoghurt or a piece of furniture - products in the purest sense of the term.
For one human being to love another; that is perhaps the most difficult of all our tasks, the ultimate, the last test and proof, the work for which all other work is but preparation.
Stephen Daldry would be a director that I would love to work with as well as Peter Jackson, Tim Burton, and I'm very lucky to have worked with Isabel Coixet, who is also one of my favourite directors.
I work very closely with my publisher and just give them tons and tons of music, and then they link that with different songwriters and stuff. I'm basically a workaholic. So, I figured I might as well just start working outside.
I do look at songwriting as a lot of work. I don't over-intellectualize music as a special medium that only some people deserve to do. I think it's something you do if you put the work in.
I'm a provincial. I live very much like a hermit: reading, listening to music, working in the cutting room, writing, commercial work - which doesn't take up that much time.
The ephemeral part of this work is that in music production, the sounds evolve so much faster than it used to, which means that you really have to put in a lot of work and effort in constantly designing the next sound that will move the culture forwa...
There is nothing better than to make it to the College World Series. All of the extra reps in the weight room, all of the early morning practices, and all the hard work spent the entire year makes it worth it.
