I think 'No' is a very powerful word in our business that is very hard to use early on in your career. But I also think I was pretty arrogant when I was younger... I used that word maybe too much, but it did help me with finding roles that I did like...
Making African American films are hard in Hollywood. We need to rely on a support network and bring more cohesion to different filmmakers, actors, producers etc. It's a very difficult business. There aren't a lot of Africans Americans or people of co...
I feel blessed that I am able to play really dark guys in a business where they usually want you to play the same character over and over. Poor Michael Rapaport will being playing white homeboys till the day he dies. That's not the kind of career I w...
When I was 9 years old, I really wanted to be in the show business. I really wanted to be an artist. I would grab a wooden spoon and I would start singing, even if it was for my uncles and my aunts. And I would just sing any lah-lah song.
In the business I meet some beautiful women, but to be honest, 80 per cent of them are raving lunatics and are to be avoided. It's just insecurity; actors are generally quite insecure. I wouldn't date, or I've never had a fling with an actress, and I...
In a business like the movie business, you're going to have a lot of people competing. Somebody is always coming behind them who wants their job. Being an actor is like being in quicksand: whatever you do, it disappears very quickly. You have to keep...
I go home to Iowa. I call it defrosting my heart. Everyone in Iowa is so simple, a genuine. In this business, sometimes you can get cold-hearted. When I go, even if it's 20 below and snowing, I come back with a warm heart.
I would like to, in some capacity, observe how Tom Cruise goes about his business when it comes to making a movie and how he behaves on set and how he interacts with the crew because from everything that I've heard, it is the template for professiona...
Well, I think probably when I first got in the business, I wasn't thinking of being strictly a character actor. But I knew I wanted to be a working actor, and as the years have gone on, I just naturally evolved into that. Because, y'know, I'm not a l...
As I got older, I had a bunch of friends that were various teen stars. I've always known people in the spotlight and people who just grew up in L.A. and had nothing to do with the industry. It's not a glamorous thing to me. It's just a different type...
Dumb luck brought on the move from business to acting. I had moved to New York when I was 23, in the year 2000. On a lark, I went to audition for a soap opera. I thought, 'Hey, this will be a really fun story to tell my grandkids one day, that I audi...
My mother did play classical piano, not that well. And actually, my father sang with the big bands - he sang with Bob Crosby's band - but he had to give up show business when his father died. He had to come back to Montgomery and take over the furnit...
I remember when I first came to Los Angeles being staggered by the range of roles open to me. These were leading parts in shiny new projects, and what always excited me was knowing there was a possibility that I could actually get these parts. I alwa...
There have been times when I felt suicidal and I would stop my head from going in that direction of negativity because I thought there'd be something I'd miss that was funny in the future. If there's a chance I'm going to laugh tomorrow then want to ...
For all their current prestige, Osama bin Laden and the suicide bombers are still regarded in all but the most desperate districts of Gaza or Peshawar as romantics with little chance of more than symbolic victories, however bloody and brutal. That gi...
In true-life dramas, you have to do so much research. It's a big responsibility to make sure things are as correct as possible. In 'Robin Hood', you have more artistic license - it's all action, adventure and reaction. This gives everyone a chance to...
I suppose that if I could have quit, I would have, because in those days I never wanted to be an actress, the acting was something to do while I waited for a chance to study writing and directing. But I guess I was just meant to be an actress. Becaus...
It's unfortunate that we live in such a panicked, dysmorphic society where women don't even give themselves a chance to see what they'll look like as older persons. I want to have some idea of what I'll look like before I start cleaning the slates.
I've always relied a lot on landscape in my books, the atmosphere of a particular place, as well as a fair amount of external action. While writing 'Chance,' it occurred to me that this is the most internal book I've ever written. So much of the acti...
We all know that players will hit a few more home runs than usual in some years and a few less in others. But the mathematics of chance also predicts that some years they'll hit a lot more, and some years a lot less.
After high school, I went to Stanford University and majored in English. Of course, that gave me a chance to do lots more reading and writing. I also received degrees in London and Dublin - where I moved to be near a charming Irishman who became my h...
