To go from Girl, Interrupted, where I had to cry every day, to a TV show like West Wing where I get to laugh and joke around every day, has been a welcome relief.
I am a Westerner. We're not going to change the West by going East. The East has a lot to teach us, but essentially it's like a mirror, saying, hey, can't you see what's here in your own religion, what are you, stupid?
The terrorists thought they would change my aims and stop my ambitions, but nothing changed in my life except this: weakness, fear and hopelessness died. Strength, power and courage were born.
That's the best way to feed the human mind. That's how Bob Marley did it. He never put it in your face. After you got the groove, you were just singing the hooks, because you thought it was cool.
I thought to be feminine was to give in to straight culture, or the beauty standard, but in my heart I had a flair for fashion and style. They were passions I kept secret because I didn't understand I could love clothes and hair and makeup and still ...
When God created man and woman, he was thinking, 'Who shall I give the power to, to give birth to the next human being?' And God chose woman. And this is the big evidence that women are powerful.
Denmark is a country built on a commercial fleet. That's basically what we have been doing. We're just a small country of islands, and every family has a sailor. So, in many ways, my father was a sailor before I was born.
By the time I get done with my fans and my music and my kids and my family and my fiance and my horses, well, they suffer too, but, I don't really have much time left to do anything else.
After that I won a prize, I was with a group of ancient music of Spain that they helped me a lot with a grant, you see, during three years. And so I made my debut in 1944 and I found myself helping my family, it was a very poor family.
I've had an experience through music that has touched almost every part of me. It educated me in ways that I didn't get educated in school. So we try to lay on a bit of that, through being funny, being serious, playing hard.
I have never been in a serious relationship and never had a break-up, so I can't tug on my heartstrings that way. But whenever I experience a strong emotion in life, I definitely have to throw myself into my songwriting. It is very therapeutic.
There is no winning or losing, but rather the value is in the experience of imagining yourself as a character in whatever genre you're involved in, whether it's a fantasy game, the Wild West, secret agenst or whatever else. You get to sort of vicario...
So I came home and I had a resume and everything, but the only job experience I had was just playing in bars and clubs on my summers off. So, I was temping and stuff during the day and playing music at night.
All my songs are different, but from the overall experience, I want people to sense that they can overcome and move through difficult times and find strength in my music. Maybe it's a song that makes them cry and move through something else.
I've got my whole life. There's a lifetime of experience, a lifetime of experiencing the road and the music and different players. It makes me a richer human being. I have a greater source of information to tap into, a wealth of life.
I'm not born again, I'm not Kabbalah, God forbid, but I did have an experience hitting 30 that I needed to lean on something that assured me that everything is going to be okay. I had to regain a lot of my belief in fairy tales, in happy endings.
When you love food as much as I do, staying healthy is not easy. I mean, moderation, not deprivation. That's my new way of living. I always want more and that's just my life.
I do not like onions. It's so funny because I am probably one of the least picky eaters ever. Pretty much any type of new food, I'll try it, I'll eat it. But onions, and pork. Pork and onions.
Growing up in Minnesota, I had a lot of freedom to run around, and we had go-carts and four-wheelers and all that stuff. I like that adrenalin-rush stuff. I did a little bit of dance, but mostly sports.
I went to a great church here in L.A., gave my heart to the Lord and felt freedom from things I've carried throughout my life that I just thought, 'I don't have to carry them any more.'
Because Iranians have had to fight so long and painfully for political freedom, they have a deep appreciation for its value - perhaps deeper than many in the West who take their electoral rights for granted.
