As someone who has more than a passing acquaintance with most of the 20th century presidents, I have often thought that their accomplishments have little staying power in shaping popular views of their leadership.
For us, someone who is willing to step forward and help is much more courageous than someone who is merely fulfilling the role.
If you don't acknowledge differences, it's as bad as stereotyping or reducing someone.
Are we to say that any individual who's on steroids that has an angry moment is due to steroids? What about the individual who gets angry and kills someone who's not on steroids? What do we blame it on now?
I would like to be someone like Steve Martin. That's the path I'd like to follow.
Clinton saw himself much more as the steward of alliances and of consensus that moved in the right direction. He didn't see himself as someone who could change the overall thrust, I think, of global policy.
When you're so busy shooting 12 hours a day, you just eat what someone sticks in front of you.
Everyone that I have taken the mick out of, or told a story about, is someone I know properly or someone who has been a team-mate, and I know can take it. I am not stitching anyone up.
Some stories, my property, have been stolen. Someone's appropriated them. It's an illicit act. It's unfair. Suppose you had a coat you liked, and somebody went into your closet and stole it. That's how I feel.
When 'Jelly's' went out on tour, no one really wanted it. It was undersold. And I knew if I gave 'Noise' to someone else, they would sell it as 'Stomp' with little dancing black boys.
Everyone asks me why someone Turkish is making Greek yogurt. In Greece, it is not called 'Greek yogurt.' Everywhere in the world it is called 'strained yogurt.' But because it was introduced in this country by a Greek company, they called it 'Greek yogurt.'
It's a very strange thing being recognized or looked upon as someone special.
I get emotionally attached to someone if I talk to them on the street corner for five minutes.
To answer the question, though: I didn't always want to direct. I just liked the idea of it. If a friend was making a short and needed someone who knew screen direction, I would jump in. It would be horrible, but it led to a short, then another, and another. It was like student films.
Rappers aren't the really rich ones. We all have nice houses with studios and cars, but you need a piece of someone's business to be super wealthy.
When you start off a T20 innings you want someone who is going to be hitting the top of off stump, causing problems and being quite disciplined with the ball.
The thing about interviews is that if someone interviews you, and they're an idiot, then they make you sound like an idiot, too. They ask you stupid questions, and they bring you down to their level. It's tempting to not ever want to talk to anybody, but you can't do that.
You can't try to be somebody you're not; that's not style. If someone says, 'Buy this - you'll be stylish,' you won't be stylish because you won't be you. You have to learn who you are first, and that's painful.
When you have a label stuck on you, people tend to believe it. If someone calls you suave and debonair, you only get offered parts in a suit and a collar and tie. It just so happens I wear them reasonably well.
In order to describe a particular subculture, you might want to portray people who are typical or representative of that subculture; but to dramatize it, to make it an interesting setting for a story, you want to bring someone anomalous into that setting, to see how she conforms to it, and it to her.
