I had two jobs coming out of school: I did a play, 'The Great White Hope.' I played the boxer Jack Johnson. And I was the lead in this indie film. Then I moved to Los Angeles because New York was cold and it was really too quiet for me at that time. I was out of school; I was hungry. The auditions were trickling in, and I was antsy and ready to go.
I'm not afraid of hard work. I like it! It's the other bit - the not working - I find more problematic. If I'm not busy, I just get antsy. I've been this way since I was a child. Sitting still is like torture for me.
But I think it's hard for me to only put out one record a year. Because I get too antsy. But it's good I'm learning to do that, because each record counts. And you should make it count.
The first time I saw nitroglycerine was in the beginning of the Crimean War. Professor Zinin in St. Petersburg exhibited some to my father and me, and struck some on an anvil to show that only the part touched by the hammer exploded without spreading.
It was as though all my hostilities, anxieties, and conflicts were in one ball that was flying away into space, farther from me all the time, leaving me content with myself.
The future continues to preoccupy me as a reliable source of hopes, fears and anxieties, but increasingly the present seems to have no outstanding qualities of its own, being merely a way-station through which events travel to the vast shadow lands of the past.
The anxiety I get more when I'm not working. So actually work, for me, takes away my anxiety, and doing live TV, in that moment when you're consumed by something else, it takes away all of my thoughts. It distracts you!
Anxiety and spiritual searching have been consistent themes with me, and that figures into my worldview. But I tend to make my songs sound like relationship songs.
If I feel anxious every time someone is staring at me, well, I can't control what they stare at, but my reaction is, I'm just not going to go outside the house. I'm going to stay in and chill. And when I do go out, I understand what comes along with that.
I know I'm a good professional, I know that no one's harder on me than myself and that's never going to change, under any circumstances.
My sense is that you can make a film under almost any circumstances. As long as someone has a vague idea of what he's doing, something distinctive will emerge. That, to me, is what film making is all about.
My mother had just died, and I had to walk a long way behind her coffin, surrounded by thousands of people watching me while millions more did on television. I don't think any child should be asked to do that under any circumstances.
There are lots of reasons for that gap between men's and women's wages but to me, the big one is the work-family issue. Trying to juggle children and a job is tough under any circumstances, but especially if you're shooting for the kind of career that involves long hours at work and being on call 24-7.
Whatever extra there is in me at any given moment isn't fully formed. I am hardly aware of it; it awaits the next book. It will - with luck - come to me during the actual writing, and it will take me by surprise.
At any given moment, if I see my bully, the guy who's trying to conquer me, we're going to find out. And if we could fight every time we came across each other, we would.
I train with Marta every single day, and I still have no idea what she's going to throw at me. She's one of those players - anything can happen at any given moment.
People's sexuality is often defined by who we're partnered with at any given moment, which can be a frustrating limitation for me. I've had countless tiny 'coming out' moments in my life, often simply to explain to someone else that they have misjudged my sexuality based on who they saw me dating.
I have a brilliant sound design team who's been working with me since 'Mr. Robot,' and one of the things we always think about - and it's also something we think about with cinematography - is how we get inside the characters' heads and how do we place the audience where we want them to be or how we want them to feel at any given moment.
I always just try to write the best songs that I can at any given time, and sometimes those songs are for me, and sometimes they're for other people. And that's to be evaluated after the fact.
I think that in a year I may retire. I cannot take my money with me when I die and I wish to enjoy it, with my family, while I live. I should prefer living in Germany to any other country, though I am an American, and am loyal to my country.
