I have had a very physical acting career, but on 'Newsroom,' it's not about physicality, but it's about presence. I get to just be. Strong, sensitive, quiet strength can be much more intimidating than the screaming loud guy, and I'm so glad to get to...
First off, I love Woody Allen. His early movies, like 'Hannah and Her Sisters,' are incredible. I also love anything by Billy Wilder, Ron Howard and John Hughes. I really grew up on the Hughes films, which are the ones I go back and watch all the tim...
Nobody should mistreat anybody... what I think this reveals is that - the interviewer that asked me these questions even used the words with me, 'I think your views are destructive' - so what that shows me is that all of us who really think deeply ab...
When my marriage broke up... I had just put on 45 pounds for my 'Shall We Dance?' character. I had to eat 10,000 calories a day just to put on weight while training with Tony Dovolani. I basically stayed in bed for a six-month rotation of depression ...
I think so much of the horror film is about our primal instincts, and our primal instincts are not just towards violence. It's also towards sex. I feel like horror movies, as much as they're about violence, they're also about sex. It's about our inst...
Twenty years ago my parents wouldn't know who the X-Men were, and now everybody knows that stuff. It means that deconstruction of the superhero is something you can do. All those movies have led to a point where we can finally have 'Watchmen' with a ...
I prize my downtime, count on it as a writer, a parent, a person. Sometimes I think of Woody Allen's remark about masturbation, that it is sex with someone he loves. I feel as though being alone is hanging out with someone I like.
I don't think about the gender thing very much. But when I speak at schools, I've had female students say to me afterwards, "I never envisioned myself being a director, since I've never seen women do it." But after seeing me, they can picture themsel...
Woody: Hey uh, Slinky? Slinky Dog: [with a checker board] Right here, Woody. I'm red this time. Woody: No, Slink... Slinky Dog: All right, you can be red if you want. Woody: Not now, Slink. I've got some bad news. Slinky Dog: [shouts] Bad news? Woody...
Woody: Buzz! Go away, you disgusting freaks! Mutant Toys: [Woody screams as he shields Buzz's arm from Babyface which grabs Buzz's arm from Woody] Woody: All back! Back, you cannibals! [Woody screams again as he loses his grip on Buzz's arm, which se...
Woody: [through his voice box] Reach for the sky! Sid Phillips: Huh? Woody: This town ain't big enough for the two of us! Sid Phillips: What? Woody: Somebody's poisoned the waterhole! Sid Phillips: It's busted. Woody: Who are you calling busted, Bust...
I'm not terribly well read. My wife forces books into my hands and insists I read them, which I'm grateful to her for. She made me read 'War and Peace.' The whole thing. It was amazing, but I had to hide it. You can't walk round reading 'War and Peac...
I think, when I started writing songs, my voice just became another tool. It wasn't something that I was going to try desperately to woo a listener. As long as I'm using my voice in a way that helps people understand what I'm trying to say, then I fe...
The only folk I can judge are people like Woody Allen who I think is a genius, largely because I think he has beaten the system. He has his own company, and his films are all his own ideas. It's his direction, and so it comes out the way he imagined ...
I rarely sit down to write something. I usually have an experience and relate it to somebody and go, 'There I connected some dots,' you know? That's what makes people laugh. And then you go and take it on the stage, and sometimes it works, and someti...
When I eat cilantro, it's like someone sprayed perfume down my throat. It closes up my throat, even if there's only a little piece. I like Mexican food, and I'll go out to a Mexican restaurant and tell them, 'Look, I will die if you get cilantro in m...
Hunger is a deep concern of mine, and I feel that no one should go without food in this world as long as there are caring people to lend a hand. I've had to struggle in my past and I know what it's like to go without, so I try to do as much as I can ...
The job of uncovering the global food waste scandal started for me when I was 15 years old. I bought some pigs. I was living in Sussex. And I started to feed them in the most traditional and environmentally friendly way. I went to my school kitchen, ...
Music was the one thing I could control. It was the one world that offered me freedom. When I played music, my nightmares ended. My family problems disappeared. I didn't have to search for answers. The answers lay no further than the bell of my trump...
I think I'm a combination of very simple pleasures and the fact I've read a lot of books. I don't think it's a binary opposition across the board in humans and I think I'm an example that it's not. I'm hosting gay marriage rallies and I have tons of ...
'Blind Curve,' the book I'm working on now, sprang from a crazy incident that happened to me last year while on my book tour. I was pulled out of my car for a minor traffic violation - an incident that escalated into my being thrown into cuffs and to...
