Special operations are small, highly specialized. They do amazing work when they’re put into the fight, but it’s a limited resource. And so if we become overly dependent on an organization that’s designed for a very specific mission and expect them to solve all problems around the world, you’re naturally going to overextend it.
I remember being 18 and being fed up with everything – fed up with society, fed up with the political system, fed up with myself – and then you kind of go, ‘Actually, this voting thing is amazing,’ because you have a chance to change it, right?
I was amazed by how much you have to think about as a director. As an actor, you don’t have to think about much at all, as it turns out. It’s very easy. And then when you step into the director’s role, there’s this whole universe of stuff that you have to pay attention to that’s amazing to me.
My wife, a schoolteacher, very disciplined. If you think I’m tough, trust me, and wait till you see when the children are on the naughty step. It’s hilarious. So we decided that I’m going to work like a donkey and provide amazing support for the family.
I saw Boy George looking amazing, absolutely unbelievable, and messaged him asking for the number of his nutritionist. I got in touch with her, and she put me on this diet plan, working out which foods do and don’t suit me. It’s not rocket science – basically, don’t eat cake, don’t eat bread.
I know it can be difficult to try and achieve your dreams when you don’t have the same advantages as some other people may have, but this is a country full of opportunity where amazing things can happen, if you are willing to hustle and be smart about it.
I’m so proud that now you can exist as a gay man and be an Olympian, and it can be beneficial rather than negative. So it’s amazing. And I just think I feel so liberated now that I’ve been out of the closet for a while, and so I’m free in that I just get to be myself, speak freely, act freely, and I think that I am competing confidently.
There are such wonderful blessings in my life – I have this amazing baby, an amazing family, and I loved X Factor – all these moments of joy, and then these sharp drop-offs. I’d be awake, lying in bed, crying. There’s these weird moments of misplaced anger I have.
So many of Spielberg’s films inspired my imagination growing up. And then there are British films like ‘The Full Monty’ and ‘Waking Ned Devine’ that took me to places I really loved, with characters I just thought were amazing. But the films of Luc Besson showed me France – a really cool side of France.
I admire someone like Beyonce. She has amazing commitment. I needed to accept that I probably did not fit into that forum. Doing that ‘The Cherry Thing’ record was a big part of finding that place where I belong, where I may shine, but I never doubted it was there.
Everybody says, ‘I want to change,’ but they’re not willing to pay the price of it. That was the metaphor of ‘Life’s Golden Ticket’… Life is some kind of a ride, and if you want that ride to be exhilarating and amazing, you’ve got to pay to get in. And the price is a willingness to change above and beyond what most people will do.
You get to a point where you start realizing that what you’ve done is amazing and you’re proud of it, but there’s so much more to accomplish. So many projects get to a certain level and they become content, and that’s all that they ever expected or wanted.
I judge movies on how much fun I had while I was doing them. I had a great time on ‘The Right Stuff.’ Doing that was fantastic. And there was the year I did ‘The Rookie’ and ‘Far From Heaven,’ which was amazing because those two different roles were just so far apart.
It’s hard not to love Roomba. Roomba had such an amazing impact on the field. When we launched, we asked people, ‘Is it a robot?’ and got an overwhelming no – ‘robots’ have arms and legs; they command data. There was a very strong perception that robots had to look like people.
I have had this opportunity to go on a journey and experience the ride of racing cars, of different championships around the world, go-karts, F3, F4, and now F1. It’s been so amazing to be able to experience that. There have been bad days, good days, and it’s been a great ride.
Floating Points plays a lot of music that I don’t know, and I like geeking out and trying to find out what the tracks are. His knowledge of house music is pretty deep, and his selection is just amazing. And I think it’s a pleasure to listen to his music because it’s so perfectly produced.
My mother was the greatest mother in the world. She thought I was the greatest thing on two feet. I’d come home with a little composition I had written at school, and she’d look at it and say, ‘It’s wonderful! You’re another Shakespeare!’ I always assumed I could do anything. It really is amazing how much that has to do with your attitude.
Airline glamour never promised anything as mundane as elbow room, much less a flat bed, a massage, or an arugula salad. It promised a better world. Service and dress reflected the more formal era, but no one expected air travel to be comfortable. It was amazing just to have hot food above the clouds.
There are so many amazing out, gay, black artists who are really great in their own fields, but they aren’t necessarily trying to make pop music. I guess my thing is different because I am trying to be part of that world. But doing it my way.
‘Europe ’72’ was a super influential record full of fantastic songs and amazing experimental musicianship. I always valued both of those aspects in what Sonic Youth has done through the years – being able to get very abstract and very concrete within the same song.
It’s really sad looking at people like Lindsay Lohan. She’s an amazing actress, but you see what happens when people know too much about your personal life. They start not being able to look at you the same way professionally. I don’t want that to happen to me.
I don’t think immortality is necessarily the key to understanding the world. You have to be careful with what you think you’re achieving. I’m all for science discovering amazing and fantastic things about our world, but I think the motivations behind it are slightly askew.
We are on the precipice of a crisis, a Constitutional crisis. The checks and balances, which have been at the core of this Republic, are about to be evaporated by the nuclear option. The checks and balances that say if you get 51% of the vote, you don’t get your way 100% of the time. It is amazing, it’s almost a temper tantrum.
I’m excited about ‘Luke Cage’ with Michael Colter, who plays Luke Cage. I play the villain, Cottonmouth. It takes place in Harlem. It’ll just be amazing for people to get to see an African-American superhero, which there weren’t any when I was growing up.
That’s what was so amazing about ‘Mulan.’ Here is this story with all Chinese characters, and yet so many people related to her character and loved the story. So I really think as long as you have a good story that relates to a lot of people, it doesn’t matter what ethnicity it is.
