The characters are not allowed to change if you write a sitcom; they're not allowed to learn anything. There's all these sorts of rules, and you go, 'I just want to be able to write one character and then leave that behind.' Also, as a performer, and...
Not only have I made films about the subject, but I've largely funded them on my own, so I'm fully committed to doing whatever I can to change the audience's respect and appreciation for the ocean. In 100 years I want whales, dolphins and sharks to s...
Believe it or not, I write on stage. I can't write anywhere else; I have to be in a moment. I also have to challenge myself to make something funny out of a premise. I never have my own jokes written. I have to change things as I go along, and I have...
As far as friendships go, things change even without the fame. People start moving on. I have a few friends that are married and are starting to have kids and I'm like, 'Oh my goodness gracious - that's so insane.' I also have friends who are just do...
David Lee Roth had the idea that if you covered a successful song, you were half way home. C'mon - Van Halen doing 'Dancing in the Streets'? It was stupid. I started feeling like I would rather bomb playing my own songs than be successful playing som...
I grew up on the Southside of Chicago. What people don't realize is that my father was a multimillionaire who owned 12 hotels, motels, a steel mill, a radio station, a club, nursing home, and a law office. So I think it's safe to say I'm a little abo...
I hope to one day co-sign a lease with another person but, well, it doesn't plague me that I have yet to do so. Put it this way: I've never had to violently tug at my own pillow at 2 A.M. to get myself to stop snoring.
Happiness is not always through success. Equally, the constant pursuit of success is sure unhappiness. But we have to find the balance. My own thoughts are that parenting is very personal. And we all feel enormous insecurity about parenting. What are...
In a novel, I think you have a contract with the reader to make the character representative - of a moment in history, a social class... for instance, I wanted to make the boy in 'A Boy's Own Story' more like other gay men of my generation in their y...
Like every novelist, I fantasise about film. Novelists are not equipped to make a movie, in my opinion. They make their own movie when they write: they're casting, they're dressing the scene, they're working out where the energy of the scene is comin...
I rolled the second car that I ever owned, a Toyota 4 Runner. This was winter in Colorado, two weeks before the 2002 Olympic trials. I was driving in the outside lane, and my rear tire caught some black ice, and we totally turned sideways to the poin...
The greatest luxury is not driving. I didn't own a car until I was 30, and that was a Rolls-Royce, so it was cheaper to insure a chauffeur. I never want to drive again. My mind is always on other things. I hate parking, and I'm very short-tempered an...
The very phrase 'Oscar night' used to accelerate my pulse. For one thing - dating myself - it meant Bob Hope. He always had good, strong jokes, that faultless delivery, and always a new joke about his own films' failure - once again - to be honored.
I had to learn to forgive. I couldn't sleep at night. I got ulcers. I had to let go, to let God deal with it. No one wants to be mad in their own house. I didn't want to be angry my whole life. It takes so much energy out of you to be mean.
My parents were exactly like millions of other Americans who had a fire in their belly to build something of their own, and in so doing they exemplified the dignity of work, the opportunity available in this great nation to those willing to work, and...
When I left Bradford and got a phone call from Dave Parnaby asking 'did I want to come back in?', I was delighted to accept. The whole buzz at the club at the moment is great for someone like me who is still learning and wanting to hopefully go into ...
I don't know if I ever feel totally great about a record when I put it out. With every record that I put out, someone has literally got to come pry it from me because when I listen to my own music, I just hear flaws in it.
I don't get that many scripts. Back in Australia, I've pretty much done my own shows and really no work outside of that. It's only now that I'm starting to read some Hollywood film scripts, and I've read some really great ones.
There's just a feeling, when you're just an actor - I have great admiration for people who are just actors. I don't understand it, the idea of waiting to get cast, being at the whim of others. I find it incredibly powerless and frightening, so that's...
My father was a man of great charity towards the poor, and compassion for the sick, and also for servants; so much so, that he never could be persuaded to keep slaves, for he pitied them so much: and a slave belonging to one of his brothers being onc...
The whole macho thing has to be reexamined. Because in my view, the Bush administration was weak, not strong. To engage in a policy of torture is a weak policy. Because ultimately, it encourages the terrorists. It undermines our own values. It corrup...
