I think being an artist, or just being creative, or imaginative, or aware, where I think everybody starts out, and by about the age of 10, that's been pretty effectively whipped out by education.
I feel most empires fell when they started to act human, but then look at Russia. They kept a pretty strong hand, and they fell from Afghanistan alone because Afghanistan is the graveyard of empires. I guess you just can't sustain it.
I used to do a lot of interviews in the early '80s, when my career started, but it came to a point when I decided I didn't want to talk anymore, and people kind of understood that and left me alone.
It was actually my older brother who wanted to start acting. He would point at the TV as a kid and tell my mom he wanted to do it, and he would act his favorite scenes from 'Home Alone.'
When I work alone, it can be like dabbling with a canvas. Maybe you paint over bits, and it starts to form its own life and lead you off in a direction. It becomes an intuitive, subconscious process.
Marvin's Motivational Moments actually started as something that was actually therapeutic for me. I would sit up late at night after my wife passed trying to adjust to being alone.
In the case of the classic Western helicopter parent, it starts with Baby Einstein and reward charts for toilet training, and it never really ends, which is why colleges have to devote so many resources to teaching parents how to leave their kids alo...
I did take a huge leap moving countries. People have no idea how huge it is to relocate overseas. Finding your new life alone is enormous, and then starting a new career in Hollywood is so big.
The starting point of discovering who you are, your gifts, your talents, your dreams, is being comfortable with yourself. Spend time alone. Write in a journal. Take long walks in the woods.
At 13, I realized that I could fix anything electronic. It was amazing, I could just do it. I started a business repairing radios. It grew to be one of the largest in Philadelphia.
I have heard, 'Never go to bed angry,' and that makes sense. Unless you're always checking yourself, a grudge or something small can break apart a relationship, and you start to forget what is so amazing about your partner.
I think it is such an amazing moment when people realize what they are and what they can be, and they start putting themselves out into the world. I think you can see it in people when it's happening. They look different.
You're in a scene with Laura Linney or Oliver Platt or John Hickey or Alan Alda and these amazing actors and actresses, and you're like, 'Oh my God, I haven't even started; I'm nothing compared to these people!'
I really liked the helicopter pilot in 'Dawn of the Dead', when he gets bitten and comes out of the elevator. That guy was amazing. He did this incredible walk that we didn't even know about until we started shooting.
There's nothing nicer than getting a round of applause for turning up for work. It's amazing! You start work, and people clap. Do you know what I mean? And then they stand up and clap at the end.
Learning how to interact with customers is something that anyone starting any business must master. It's an amazing opportunity to be able to learn the ropes at an established company and then employ your expertise at your own company.
You know, 'The Golden Girls' was a very unusual show to start on. I was young, and it was a show about old people, and it was a very traditional show, but it was also an amazing training ground for a joke-writer. It forced me to learn those skills.
I saw Ellen and my knees were weak. It was amazing. And it was very hard for me to get her out of my mind after that. Then when I saw her that night, we started talking, and that's that.
It isn't enough just to scream at the Occupy Wall Street demonstrations. We need our political system to start reflect this anger back into, 'How do we fix it? How do we get the economy going again?'
I started writing because there's an absence of things I was familiar with or that I dreamed about. One of my senses of anger is related to this vacancy - a yearning I had as a teenager... and when I get ready to write, I think I'm trying to fill tha...
What starts the process, really, are laughs and slights and snubs when you are a kid. If your anger is deep enough and strong enough, you learn that you can change those attitudes by excellence, personal gut performance.
