Having a child makes you strong and gives you chutzpah. It relaxed my attitude to the job; my center of focus shifted, which I think is very helpful, because even if you're not a very indulgent actor you spend a lot of time thinking about yourself. I...
There's also some element of coming of age during the Reagan administration, which everybody has painted as some glorious time in America, but I remember as being a very, very dark time. There was apocalypse in the air; the punk rock movement made se...
I was a product of a divorced family and I used humor as a weapon to combat sadness. I used comedy to make my mother laugh in light of the darkness that she faced, and to me it became a very powerful tool at a very young age, at six. I saw how therap...
I started culinary school at a very young age, and really I wanted to be out working, cooking, more than I wanted to be in a classroom. You could say I wasn't a very good student - I wanted to be a student of life and experience.
I was being singled out as the best in the class at this, that and the other, nearly always to do with art. And then I was a very good swimmer from a very early age, and once again the best in the class, and when I was about five or six, I was the be...
When sighted people cover their eyes or find themselves in a dark place, this is something that's very terrifying for us. And so in general, we assume that this is what blindness means. But of course, it isn't. For people who were born blind or who g...
I guess I am basically most comfortable when I'm alone. As a kid, I was very much a loner. I love long distance running and long distance biking. A director once pointed out that those are all very isolated exercises you do for hours at a time.
I did a short film at Outfest, 'Where Are the Dolls,' based on an Elizabeth Bishop poem done, where I play this woman who is sort of walking the streets and ends up alone dancing in a club. I have this hot and heavy scene with a very beautiful actres...
I can't get very excited about the House of Commons these days because I don't feel the power is there. What is really bizarre is that you sense it is not in Washington either. It is now very hard even to locate the levers of power, let alone to pull...
Yes, you can feel very alone as a poet and you sometimes think, is it worth it? Is it worth carrying on? But because there were other poets, you became part of a scene. Even though they were very different writers, it made it easier because you were ...
As a kid, I was always very shy growing up - I wasn't very good at articulating my thoughts or my feelings. Now that I'm older, I found acting to do that. So it's been an amazing way to sort of express who I am.
If my dramatic career doesn't work out, I will go on to research and find cures for Alzheimer's or Parkinson's and other motor neuron diseases. It's a very exciting field of research. But I'd like to continue in drama, so it wouldn't be very smart of...
Wal-Mart is an amazing success story. What I particularly admire very much about the late Sam Walton was his policy of valuing his employees. Giving value to employees is very rare in the retail industry. I also admire the strategies Walton used to b...
Science is one of a handful of things that defines us as a very special species. It is amazing how far we have been able to get and how accurate our predictions are. I think understanding how the universe was born is very important. It really gives u...
Some people act as though art that is for a mass audience is not good art, and I think this has been a very negative thing. I know that I have wanted very much to write books that are accessible to the widest audience possible.
I want to be an improviser, and I've worked very hard at that. It's an art. You don't just play whatever comes into your head; you have to be very deliberate about what you do.
With a movie you're creating from the beginning this particular work, let's not call it work of art, because very few movies are works of art, let's just call them bits of popular culture, whatever they are, sometimes very rarely by accident a movie ...
I'm very happy to be a part of a very successful piece of art, as the 'Saw' films have been. One gets into this to participate. It's the coming together of a good story. So, that aspect of it has been just splendid. It really has nothing to do with m...
Anything that smiles often needs to be reminded that the world is a cruel, dark place.
Yvan's a very tolerant bloke, which of course, when it comes to relationships, is the worst thing you can be. Yvan's very tolerant because he couldn't care less.
Many years ago, I left my home country very narrow minded. Today I return with an educated mind, able to understand why my culture is as it is and still be very proud of it.
