So often, we're expected to maintain some sort of standard - that won't get you where you need to go. One of the most daring things I've done is drop out of graduate school. I had no job, but something inside me was saying, 'Go! Be in the world!' I h...
I want to make myself and the crowd happy by way of something different, and that makes things difficult. I'm never playing something that hasn't been released or no one has ever heard before because I care to deliver them what they were hoping to se...
Years ago, NPR tried to stop me from going on "The Factor." When I refused, they insisted that I not identify myself as an NPR journalist. I asked them if they thought people did not know where I appeared on the air as a daily talk show host, nationa...
What's considered ideal in Hollywood is completely different than anywhere else in the world. I don't think you can aspire to it, nor can I. Everybody is retouched, stretched, lengthened, slimmed and trimmed. I could look at a picture of myself from ...
When I first started working, I was very aware of the fact that I'd been to university and studied Russian and French and not acting. So when I started working, I'd started working quite young, I felt like it was important to treat myself kind of lik...
It's fun to get away from myself for a while when I take on these roles that have very different personalities from my own. I get to say things I normally wouldn't say or act in ways I normally wouldn't act. After all, such roles are more challenging...
I don't want to be a historical action figure or treated like I'm dead. Like one of those people where they go, 'Oh, isn't she dead?' And then I walk up, and they're like, 'Whoa.' I can't really complain... because I've made myself into a historical ...
The quote-unquote 'description' of a leading man was once your tall, handsome man with the build of whatever, almost a trophy to some degree. I think now it's about making a leading man what you want a leading man to be. In this day, you can't deny t...
I think grief and fear are going to come to him suddenly. They'll be undiluted and words won't work. We're all going to get hit and won't know how to hit back. I wish I knew the answers, how to help myself and the people who will hurt all around me.
'Fiancee' is a very fun word to say, because I never thought I would have a fiancee or be a fiancee. Sometimes when I would introduce myself and say, 'This is my girlfriend Melanie,' it wasn't always clear what I meant. Now I get to say, 'This is my ...
I was always the tallest girl in my class, and it made me have really bad posture because I wanted to seem shorter than I really was. It really reflected how I felt about myself. I spent most of my youth in school feeling really insecure about the wa...
Patience is a virtue, but there comes a moment when you must stop being patient and take the day by the throat and shake it. If it fights back; fine. I'd rather end up bloody at the end of the day, then unhurt with no progress made, no knowledge gain...
Most people remember being 4 objectively, as if they're seeing a movie of a 4-year-old. But me, if you ask me to think about when I'm 4, I can feel myself being 4, and I am there, looking out through my 4-year-old eyes.
I completely think of myself as sexual. Completely and utterly. Probably more so than I did when I was 30. I don't know why. I'm very comfortable with how I look. I'm absolutely committed to never having anything done to my face. I would never let an...
My wife and I are affiliated with a temple here in Los Angeles. We feel very close to the congregation and to the rabbi, who happens to be my wife's cousin and who I admire greatly. I talk to him regularly but I consider myself more spiritual than re...
—And you completely blow me away and rip my world up and everything else, and then you go back to ignoring me.” “I blew you away?” I squeak out before I can stop myself. He stares at me steadily. “You blew everything away.
What humility does for one is it reminds us that there are people before me. I have already been paid for. And what I need to do is prepare myself so that I can pay for someone else who has yet to come but who may be here and needs me.
When I look back, I am so impressed again with the life-giving power of literature. If I were a young person today, trying to gain a sense of myself in the world, I would do that again by reading, just as I did when I was young.
I have the most eclectic audience - I've got gay, I've got straight, black, white, rich, poor, young, old, in 45 countries. And they don't all come because I'm the Sinatra kid, though that's a big part of it. My biggest successes have come from pop s...
I am a hopeless pantser, so I don't do much outlining. A thought will occur to me, and I'll just throw it into the story. I tell myself I'll worry about untangling it later. I'm glad no one sees my first drafts except for my poor editor and agent.
One of the most special things about the city of New Orleans is how diverse a people we really are. There's been a new generation of individuals that have all grown up together, so I don't really see myself as a White mayor. I've never seen New Orlea...
