One of the main secrets to staying young is staying healthy. I’ve sometimes had to suppress a smile when some young lady, who has obviously not taken care of herself through diet or exercise, says admiringly, ‘Ooh, I hope I look as good as you do when I’m your age!’ Although it’s intended to be complimentary, it’s actually a back-hander.
I was never one of those surly teenagers who doesn’t smile. My lovely godfather said it was always lovely to see me because I was the only teenager who smiled. And I was so in awe of him, I thought it was one of the best things anyone had ever said to me. So it made me want to live up to what he said.
By coincidence and not design, ‘Everstar’ is written and drawn by an all-female creative team, and it makes me smile to think that there may be young female readers out there, future writers and artists, who get to see that comics doesn’t have to be a ‘boys’ club.’
When we run out of them upstairs, I’ve been known to appropriate some from our greenroom, pocketing a few with one hand as I smile and greet our guests with the other. One time, Dave Zinczenko of ‘Eat this, Not That!’ fame, busted me in the act. The cookies apparently fall in the ‘not that’ category. I made a note of it.
Nothing can resist the person who smiles at life – I don’t mean the ironic and disillusioned smile of my grandfather, but the triumphant smile of the person who knows that he will survive, or that at least he will be saved by what seems to be destroying him.
I was kind of like the Rhea Perlman of the bar. I was like Carla on ‘Cheers.’ People were more afraid of me. There was a point where I got a little surly. There were only so many chicken wings I could serve before losing the smile on my face.
In the car on my way to premieres and awards shows, I’ll sit with tissue paper under my armpits so I don’t soil the delicate dress fabric. The whole time, I’m telling myself, ‘Please don’t sweat, please don’t sweat.’ I throw the tissues out right before I step out of the car, and nobody ever knows! I just put on a smile and fake it.
When checking in at an airport, no matter how rude the check-in person is to you, always smile and be nice because you don’t know what kind of day they’ve had. You are going on holiday and they’re stuck wherever they are. Be nice to them because they can re-route your baggage to wherever they feel like.
So many girls second-think their pose or what they’re doing. And, in turn, the photos will come out really unnatural. I say to really give the camera a performance – that, and make sure you’re comfortable with how you look, and give it a good smile and a filter.
A simple compliment goes a really long way – for a guy to just come over and say, ‘You have great hair’ or ‘I really like your dress,’ and then just smile and walk away. That’s a great move, because he’s sort of putting himself out there by doing that, but it won’t lead to any embarrassment if the girl isn’t interested.
I wanted to do another movie that could make us laugh and cry and feel good about the world. I wanted to do something else that could make us smile. This is a time when we need to smile more and Hollywood movies are supposed to do that for people in difficult times.
When Whitney Houston died, I felt great sadness. My sadness, of course, was about our collective loss – when you listened to this nightingale sing, your body would drop into a chair, your head would tilt up, a small smile would creep across your face, and inside you knew that there was a higher power somewhere: gifted, beautiful, spiritual.
As an entrepreneur, I’ve come across countless articles and quotes proudly telling me that I should accept failure, smile, and keep my head up. In other words, I’ve been told to stay positive. The thing is, when you’re forced to shut down a business and let really awesome people you care about go, staying positive is the last thing on your mind.
Kanye is so much fun. He’s a wonderful person. What I love about Kim and Kanye is that I think they save their happy moments and their smiles for themselves rather than sharing everything with the public. And listen, when a camera is shoved in your face trying to take a selfie, you do not want to smile.
As a youngster, my mother and father always drilled into my head having something to fall back on. My father was kind of funny. I’d score 40 points. I’d come home and say, ‘Look dad, I scored 40.’ He’d never have a smile on his face. He’d be like, ‘I saw that move you did. What if you’d hurt your knee?’
The NBA Schedule was made up by one man, Eddie Gottlieb, who had owned the Philadelphia Warriors. Eddie had a Buddha-like body and a crinkly smile, and because he had also been an owner in baseball’s old Negro leagues, he was known as the Mogul.
I like joy; I want to be joyous; I want to have fun on the set; I want to wear beautiful clothes and look pretty. I want to smile, and I want to make people laugh. And that’s all I want. I like it. I like being happy. I want to make others happy.
It’s very strange to go to cities like London and New York. People walk so quickly, they seem to be in a hurry all the time. And you don’t say ‘Hi’ to everyone you meet, and you don’t smile to everyone you meet, because there’s just so many. Which is also very strange.
I can’t wait for summer in the city! I love all the free activities in the parks that become available to us New Yorkers. Yoga and movie screenings in Bryant Park, concerts in Central Park – there’s so much more available to the New York community in the summer! And everyone just seems to smile more.
Ascetics and fakirs come to mitigate human suffering; to heal us and lead us on the path. They put up with criticism; they go through many worldly trials. Some of them have even become martyrs for our sake. But they have done all this with a smile and with gratitude to God. Hence sacrifice is a great virtue.
To me, acting used to be just, ‘Get my face out there, get girls, make a little bit of money, make my mom proud.’ It was just like sports. But there were moments in ‘Moonlight’ that I really felt like I had to know why he is the way he is. Or just people in general – why this person walks around with a frown on their face instead of a smile.
I do remember meeting ‘The Donald.’ He seemed to really enjoy the WrestleMania 4 battle royal. He watched me take a very hard front turnbuckle bump, and it seemed to stun him that I wasn’t seriously hurt. Backstage, Trump gave me a big smile and a handshake.
On street corners everywhere, people are looking at their cell phones, and it’s easy to dismiss this as some sort of bad trend in human culture. But the truth is life is being lived there. When they smile – right, you’ve seen people stop – all of a sudden, life is being lived there, somewhere up in that weird, dense network.
My mother is a big believer in being responsible for your own happiness. She always talked about finding joy in small moments and insisted that we stop and take in the beauty of an ordinary day. When I stop the car to make my kids really see a sunset, I hear my mother’s voice and smile.
Smiles come naturally to me, but I started thinking of them as an art form at my command. I studied all the time. I looked at magazines, I’d practice in front of the mirror and I’d ask photographers about the best angles. I can now pull out a smile at will.
