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I think for a lot of people, the financial barrier is the biggest leap (that) you have to take. A lot of people don't want to stick their necks out and take that risk which is totally understandable. Until you are ready to totally bet on yourself and put all of your chips on the table, it doesn't happen.
There are two kinds of actors -- one sits in a dressing room waiting for his call and the other gets out into the business and polishes his craft by absorbing everything. I don't know enough, I'll never learn everything I need to learn. When a guy thinks he's already learned it, he can only go backwards.
In comedy you sometimes have to look at the funny bone a little bit. So, that was the hardest part - was not offending. I'm not laughing at anybody. We're laughing together about who we are - and the funnier part of who we are. I'm (sure) not writing this and calling you a stereotype. I'm not doing that.
You watch these reality shows and say, 'Oh, I would do that, except for eating all the gross stuff.' These reality shows are like everyone's little guilty pleasure. To have an opportunity to be on one, why not? Anybody who says, 'No, I don't want to be on one' is kind of lying in the back of their heads.
My Obama is getting pretty good ... I think I'll vote for whoever makes my portrayal easier. It takes time to put together a comic impression. It takes time to recognize the tics. Right now, for instance, I could do a dead- on Paul Ryan and people wouldn't recognize it. Personalities take a while to sin.
A lot of people have an opinion on scripts, but they aren't equipped to diagnose what the problems are. You realize that scriptwriting is such a specialist subject, but because it's so common, everyone thinks that they can talk about that. I think it's something that writers only know, that they can see.
As much as I would love to be a person that goes to parties and has a couple of drinks and has a nice time - that doesn't work for me. I do that very unsuccessfully. I'd just rather sit at home and read, or go out to dinner with someone, or talk to someone I love, or talk to somebody that makes me laugh.
Just look at the cinema itself: It's comprised of lots of movies about graphic novels, and if you're not 20 years old and wearing a cape and a mask and white, you're out of business. Today's cinema is a proliferation of comedies, which are in some ways creating caricature images. They're one-dimensional.
A spiritual retreat is medicine for soul starvation. Through silence, solitary practice, and simple living, we begin to fill the empty reservoir. This lifts the veils, dissolves the masks, and creates space within for the feelings of forgiveness, compassion, and loving kindness that are so often blocked.
I'm very vocal about my belief that all religion is garbage. Most of my friends are religious or at least spiritual. These are people I like and I know are intelligent. It's this thing that I carry around. I know I'd be a better person if I was fairer, but it's at the core of who I am and what I believe.
We all have cultural bias, racial bias. One of the difficult things around this subject matter is to deny that we have places we go to subconsciously, and unless you consciously decide that that's wrong and you've got to do something about it, especially if you're in a position of power, it won't change.
When you're kissing on camera, it becomes an issue visually. It looks like a skinny dinosaur creature is trying to kiss someone. It doesn't look good. It does not look like the classic romance kisses. If an actress is 5'3" and I don't bend down to kiss her, she would probably be kissing my lower sternum.
What's great about TV, and what I love about being on 'Parenthood,' is you have this family. I'm now going on four years of working with the same 100 people, and that helps you feel like your life has more roots. It's more conducive to having a family, and you're staying in town. So that part is amazing.
I obviously identify with the anti-authority figure. I've pretty much always had problems with authority, ever since I was a kid. But, yeah, it's not identifying, I think it's more a part of my natural DNA that I question anybody who has a plan. Everybody's got to have an angle; that's the way I grew up.
My first paying gig was a play called 'The Voice of the Prairie' at a theater that no longer exists in Chicago called Wisdom Bridge. I played a fast-talking radio huckster - a salesman of crystal sets in the 1920s - and I actually won an award. Look at that! And then promptly didn't get hired for a year.
You have to have the fire in your belly. I'm having more fun now with acting than I did when I first started out, because I'm doing it just because I really enjoy it. I'm not trying to "make it" anymore. I'm not trying to be anything, you know? The biggest this and that for anybody. I'm just enjoying it.
I like girls that are down to earth, intelligent, and don't try to be anything that they're not. One thing that I fall for all the time is girls with blue eyes and brown hair. There's something about that combination that I find really sexy. It's all in the eyes...and the personality, but that's obvious.
When I was a kid, I had ambitions for being a television announcer, which was before television took off, you know, in the late 40s. And just through necessity, going out looking for work, I was starting to sing, and dance, and act, and I never expected to do that, nor to have any success at it at least.
It's crazy, it's different. It's what I wanted, but it's different. It's not exactly what I wanted, you know what I mean? If you become an actor you want to be a successful actor; but with success comes a lot of things. Some of it's great! It's great to be able to pay your rent from the work that you do.
Panama is a country that's been dealing with issues of identity since its very birth. It was born on Wall Street. It was born out of engineering construction. It was the canal. Because of the canal, the country was born, so the country has been divided into pro-canal and against-canal people for so long.
Two friends and I decided to get tattoos of different animals. My one friend got a bulldog. My other friend got a bull, I think, and then I got a shark. Two years later, there was a cartoon called 'Street Sharks,' and by happenstance, it looked eerily reminiscent of my tattoo. Actually, it was identical.
For me there's always a line or two in a script, when you hit it you almost decide to do the whole movie off a line or two. You almost do it for the fun of getting to say a line or two like that. I don't have any specific plans, you know. I mean, if Seth Rogen calls with a great buddy pic, I'll be there.
Detroit is still seen as the tough city, a city that has a reputation for high crime, ... The tough city thing is fine. Its always had a reputation as that. ... You know, Gordie Howe, when I was watching hockey, was the toughest guy in the league playing for the Red Wings. He represented that tough aura.
I was pretty much consumed by this character. Even when I was off, I was continually searching to find something else new about [Idi] Amin, and to embed myself deeper into the culture to the point that, in the end, I was so entrenched that I could tell what tribe someone was from just by looking at them.
For many child soldiers, war and violence are all they have ever known. If we don't take it upon ourselves to show them an alternative, then they're going to be soldiers forever, and they'll continue to be recruited and to participate in violence if another conflict starts five or 10 years down the road.
I was in middle school right around the time the Bloods and the Crips started taking root in Compton and a lot of the other neighborhoods around me. I saw way too many of my peers - smart, kind, good kids - who got drawn into gangs and violence, and their futures were going to be forever scarred by that.
It's a shame about California, and particularly about L.A., where they've demolished so many landmarks. It's a bit of a disease there, where if anything is over 30 years old, they sort of knock it down and replace it. It's a strange town, it's this sprawling suburb, and then there's a city, the old town.
This political climate today reminds me of what my father must have gone through in 1942, when the winds of war and fires of hate were surrounding him. We have a candidate for the presidency of the United States, Donald Trump, using the same rhetoric that my father must have heard from elected officials.
I am not sure how much Dudley will feature just because of the grand scale of the film and the fact that there are so many stories and characters to tie up. I haven't seen the film yet but I think it will be a blink-and-you'll-miss-it moment, but it was nice just to round it off and give it some closure.
I met with Hitchcock when I was a very, very young actress just starting out and he was making 'Frenzy' in London and I was sent along to meet with him. He was very, very unimpressed with me and I have to say, I was rather unimpressed with him - but only because I was an arrogant, ignorant young actress.
I was allergic to school. I was completely befuddled by school. I was trying so hard, but I couldn't succeed. I took geometry for four years, the same course over and over again, and I did not graduate with my senior class. I finally passed geometry after doing summer school, and eventually, I graduated.
I didn't read a book until I was 31 years old when I was diagnosed with dyslexia. Books terrified me. They made me nervous. Now I know you can travel to the bottom of the ocean or to outer space or anywhere in between without leaving your armchair, and I'm so, so sorry I couldn't read when I was younger.
Sometimes you can make friends, and sometimes you can take friends. Sometimes people want to be friends with you, and you gotta be like, 'Okay, I can deal with this person's personality and be their friend, but not necessarily do I have to change who I am. I'm not gonna change myself to be their friend.'
The physicality was important to me. Because the film has Shane Black's dialogue, and [Robert] Downey's delivery, and you look at [Jon] Favreau, Don Cheadle and Gwyneth [Paltrow], it is this heightened level with a comedic aspect to it. Everything is grounded in reality, but it plays a little heightened.
I just enjoyed bar mitzvahs as a kid, and there was this company in the Detroit area where I grew up, and I think they recruited me as a party dancer - you know, like, you dance around and pass out glow sticks. I quickly rose in the ranks and, within a year, became an emcee, which was kind of unheard of.
I don't know, when I was a kid, when I would see shows that changed my life, I would go to see shows where there was my mother taking us to see classic rock concerts, like Zeppelin, or when I saw Pink Floyd or when I saw, you know, when I was a little older, and I saw Nine Inch Nails, and I saw The Cure.
It's not about the script: it's about who the director is and who the other people in the cast are. Because you can look at a great script and execute it in a very sophomoric way, and you can look at an OK script, and you can execute it in a very sophisticated way and come out with something really good.
I'd love to cook. It's something I've got into since I've grown older. I'm mates with Jamie Oliver and he's been a real inspiration. I've cooked for Jamie a few times - most people are too frightened to cook for him. Chefs are really easy to cook for. They're just pleased not to be the one who's cooking.
Children have to fly on a separate plane, and people older than 60 have to fly on a separate plane also, because for some reason, after you get a little older, you forget that when you pull on the seat in front of you to get up from your seat that the person sitting in that seat actually feels something.
It was when '21' came out. I was in Los Angeles and my face was everywhere: on buses, on posters, on the side of buildings. I didn't feel that blown away by it. I was still hungry to prove myself. I realised that quite quickly, that I had to find something that challenged me from an acting point of view.
I think what kind of destroyed the franchise, in some ways, was ego and vanity. When that element of ego and vanity that's sitting there in the franchise right now gets pushed aside, I think the whole thing could be re-tooled. I think it's the type of franchise that has years in it, and has lots of legs.
There may be something in the fact that when I was a little kid I'd been told growing up that we had some degree of native American blood in us, I always found that a point of pride. So, when it came to cowboys and Indians I most certainly did not want to be John Wayne. I wanted to be one of the Indians.
I couldn't be 'Johnny' in front of a camera in acting jobs and behind the camera I like to be 'Michael.' With directing, you can't do it by halves. There's a lot of reflection, and I have found that I, as 'Michael,' thrive on it. It's lovely coming home and feeling that stuff from a day's work as myself.
I have a lady, she's a great lady. I love her a lot, she loves me. We're on the same page. Whenever that day happens when we're not on the same page we'll move forward with it. We're interested in having our lives be our lives right now and not a third person's vis-a-vis marriage and whatever that means.
I've only ever played 'God of War' while we were shooting it. I've seen a lot of the videos, but while we were shooting 'God of War,' they had a green room for the actors to hang out in, and they always had the newest game on the big screen. So we'd sit there playing 'God of War' to get us into the mood.
Before I started doing '30 Rock', I did about 25 movies. I'd always been doing stand-up every night, and then I would do, like, two to four movies a year. So I really liked doing that, and I want to get back to that, but because of the time commitment to '30 Rock', there's not much time to do that stuff.
The same thing I did in 2013 is what I'm trying to do in 2014, which is continue to improve, continue to shock people. You know, I have several projects coming up between 2014 and 2015, and hopefully by 2015, I'll have another hour of stand-up material where I'll be able to go on the road and tour again.
When you're doing a film and the majority of the film is cast black, for me, it's most important to get people to view those movies as just movies, as just good movies. At the end of the day, regardless of the color of the cast, we're all doing the same thing in this business: trying to make a good film.
With music, you're laying it all out there. They're judging you right away, and you can lose them quick. With the comedy, you've always got another joke to redeem yourself. Or, even if you've only got one joke, at least the punch line is at the end. Then they have to at least pay attention until the end.
I hate that there'll be moments in my day and I'll be patting down my legs trying to find my phone. I hate how anxious it makes me feel when I don't have it. When I go on holiday, or I go back to Australia, I put my phone in my bag and I don't worry about it; I think differently and I feel less stressed.