I did a movie called 'The Savages' with Laura Linney and Phillip Seymour Hoffman, where I played a nurse, and it showed me in a different role from what I played on 'The Wire.' It showed my range as an actor.
I was in the fashion shows in Milan; I was seventeen, I was doing like 100 shows. People were asking, 'How does it feel to be the model of the moment?' It was hard for me to answer as myself. I barely spoke English.
I like to pick out a certain part of each show I'm in and I watch it when I'm not onstage or in my dressing room. I'll go down to the stage and watch that part of the show each night.
I don't want to be thought of as a survivor because you have to continue getting involved in difficult situations to show off that particular gift, and I'm not interested in doing that anymore.
We gave the show away and in return, we received a certain number of minutes per hour for the three-hour show that we could sell to Madison Avenue. One of the first sponsors was MGM Records.
As a kid I watched television 24 hours a day and loved every minute of it. The two shows that always make me laugh and are therefore my favourites are The Dick Van Dyke Show and Fawlty Towers.
Well, it's still another two-day competition, so it's really important to show that you're ready. Every meet is really important right now. You've got to keep showing you can hit.
The talk show, as a genre, has been in decline for a while. It started with Jerry Springer, when the talk shows suffered a metamorphosis, going from the real and social issues to the hair-raising.
I always improvise with the crowd. Sometimes it will be a 50 percent show, sometimes 70 percent, sometimes it's almost a whole show where I wing it. It depends on my mood, the energy in the room. For sure, a portion of it is just kind of winging it.
I will love to be called a foolish man of peace, than to be named a wise man of war. Show me your weapons of war and I will show you my Bible of peace!
One reason I do the live shows - and the monthly speeches at public radio stations - is to remind myself that people hear the show, that it has an audience, that it exists in the world. It's so easy to forget that.
Having a show get canceled is like, 'Oh, you have caviar between your teeth,' you know what I mean? Because you had a show in the first place.
Apple enjoys 'Harry Potter'-like adoration and queues because it sells physical objects, limited by the pace of assembly lines in China. To own is to have, to have is to hold, and to hold is to show off.
Their argument is that most shows are losers, which is true, but it's also disingenuous to say, 'We are not going to take the risk unless it is totally covered by the few successful shows that are out there.'
Trying to get the talk show, looking back on it, we had to beg a lot of station managers to pick up the show because people thought no one would watch it because I'm openly gay.
When you're working on a film, it's not theater; you don't have a few weeks of rehearsal. A lot of times you are showing up on set, and you've never been to the place; you've never met the other actors you're working with.
I had it in my contract with CBS, a very weird clause that was never written before and certainly not since, that if I wanted to do a variety show within the first five years of the contract, CBS would have to put it on for 30 shows.
In the UK and the US especially you've got a lot of throwaway artists who have their 40 million dancers and they do their show. There's many artists who would not do a live show because they know they can't.
I think especially with the Internet and the amount of reality shows that are going on, there's no way to keep a secret anymore, so I try to let my project be as much as reality show as I can allow it to be.
We need to, you know, restore people. We need to show mercy. I mean, because as much mercy as you show people, that's the mercy you're going to be receiving.
Statistics show that many people watch our show from the bedroom. and people you ask into your bedroom have to be more interesting than those you ask into your living room. I kid you not!
