I love Yamaha Clavinovas. I have them at home, in the studio and on tour with me. I find them ideal for all sorts of things: silent practice with headphones at home; writing; arranging and... just playing the blues!
I'm just living in Eau Claire, not really leaving for much. I go to the farmers market, go to the studio, go home and play with my cats. I don't know if I've ever been this happy, which is really awesome.
I hate formal stuff. I love looking like a doll and all that stuff and playing dress up, but when I'm home, sweat pants, t-shirt. When I'm in the studio, sweat pants, t-shirt.
After school, my mom would pick me up and I would just go to visit my dad in the recording studio, and I would see him working with Mark Hamill or hear him doing the 'Transformers' or a 'G.I. Joe' or the 'Rugrats.'
I suppose some studio executive would say it's death for a comedy if people aren't all laughing in the same places, but I find with my movies that people laugh in very different places. I can't control it.
I don't think an NC-17 rating is the kiss of death. Nor do I think that, in the hands of the right filmmakers, studios have a preconceived notion to pass on NC-17 material.
Realistically, it's the great truism that screenwriters are fungible, that at the end of the day a studio is not going to want to fire a movie star. And they're really not going to want to fire a star director because the director has the hand on the...
Randy Newman and I grew up together in Los Angeles. We are both products of the film studio era. Randy is one of the great songwriters of our time and one of the fun people to be with.
I'm excited that 'The Good Guy' is getting distribution because indie movies they're not - people ran out of money and they're not making these movies anymore. It's all superhero movies or real obvious tent pole studio films.
It just clicked that it was the next step for me; choreographing didn't interest me, and opening a studio wasn't a passion for me. I didn't know if I'd be very good at acting, but then my first scene in acting class... I just loved it.
It's a weird thing when you make records. You try to hear it before you make it, so you walk into the studio with this idea of what you expect to happen, and that usually changes. That usually turns into something else, and that's a good thing.
Chris is the engineer down at the studio where we do these things. And he's just such an integral part and he has such a marvelous ear. Also it turns out, we didn't know, but he's a pretty good fiddle player.
Darrell is really good in the studio. I mean, he has a real working knowledge of how the process works, and what sounds good coming back over tape, and how the stuff works together.
I've done a few studio films in the last few years where I feel like I've done good work, and then I only end up in two scenes. That's been very disappointing.
It doesn't matter if they're famous or not - I just want to meet other creative people who can maybe bring something different to the studio than what I have. I think that's the most important thing for me.
It's true; I have a skill and it's... it has not related to acting, it's not related to auditions, it's not related to studios, not related to public whim. It's whether I'm funny or not and whether I can entertain people.
I watch my contemporaries, and they love to live in the studio and I don't. I have a life. I treat it as a 9-to-5. I try to create something new every day, and then I get on with my life.
I think I was very lucky to have grown up with an artist's studio in the house. It was a kind of life that was possible. Yeah, it made it kind of harder because the standards were higher, but there was no pressure.
If I'm not on tour or in the studio, I'm in nature somewhere, usually some kind of ocean. Playing music has afforded me that. It's not lost on me that it's a tremendous opportunity to be able to spend your life being surrounded by nature.
I came from a dance background, so that's what I did my whole teenage years. I was at the dance studio a lot. It just becomes your social scene and part of your life.
I think especially in a world where you have so little say about what goes on in your life, or in the politics of the world around you, it is wonderful to go into that studio, and tell yourself what to do.
