I'm a big perfectionist! I'm trying to channel super-confident women like Alicia Keys, Mariah Carey and Beyonce, because I realized that if you want something, you really have to go for it, just like they do.
It's the people that ultimately are less talented or have less confidence in what they're doing that then try to micro-manage, which lends itself to a less than ideal film.
U.S. Rep. Debbie Wasserman-Schultz accused Republicans of trying to make it a crime to be an illegal alien. Democrats see a conspiracy plot. First Republicans want to say that illegal aliens are illegal, next they're going to want to take away their voting rights.
President Obama hosted a state dinner for British Prime Minister David Cameron. The president and the British are getting along a lot better lately. They love to compare notes on ways the Tea Party's always trying to overthrow their rule in America.
If I crave a frequency in the mid, I'll just drag in a sound and try to mold it into what feels right. It happens very quickly. And if I've been making a piece of music for five hours and it sucks, I'll just throw it away.
I try to get my subconscious to puke out as much stuff as I can because I'm really not judging myself while making music.
Only after a piece of music is done does my frontal cortex allow me to organize what might be trying to come out of my subconscious.
With song titles, I try to keep a healthy sense of humor while saying something at the same time.
When I sit down to make music, I try to enter a flow; I always open a blank session and just make something that I feel like making.
There is also a particular frustration that I have with language. It's so clumsy. There's often two words that are close in meaning, yet what I'm trying to say is in between them, or it might be a little more layered and nuanced. Having this conversation with you is exciting, because I can feel you resonate, even though we're on the phone. That's really beautiful to me.
It's very human to try to put things into boxes, and it's hard for us to reconcile with grey areas, and yet somehow that's the area I find the most poetic, the juiciest.
In shows where the audience wants to try to understand the work, the work is placed in a space of possibility where it becomes a subject of inquiry rather than being subject to conclusive interpretations. This is the gift I receive when I go abroad.
For me, my films have already aged. When they're finished, I don't want to watch them. Of course, I feel protective, but I try not to attach myself to these stories.
I'm trying to remain unfamous.
I'm always feeling excruciatingly embarrassed after a concert; it's such an unnatural thing to do. On one hand, it's so unnatural to step in front of so many people and try to do something like I do, but on the other hand, it can be such a fantastic boon and such a wonderful ride.
I used to get down on myself a lot if I missed a shot, and it would just break my focus. But now I stay mentally tough and try to just forget about that play and keep on going.
I can't be someone I'm not. I try to be a warrior on the court, but where I come from, being macho doesn't get you anywhere.
I try to find out what the guy's strengths and weaknesses are. Like in boxing, I'd be a counter-puncher. Whatever he does well, I try to take advantage of what he doesn't do well.
I've been shooting the ball and running a little bit. It's just going out here now and forgetting that I've been out and try to get back in and make sure I know what's going on out there on the floor and that we're just not lost as a team.
I try to teach my kids to be open.
It's only when people get involved, when there's money involved, that you have a lot opinions around you. I try not to listen to them too much.
Not harder than it should be, no. We're about the business, we're about the work. It's all about the work, always. We have fun and laugh and there're days that are more intense than others, but we're there to make it better. He's always going to try and make it better, I'm always going to try and make it better. So you accept anything, you accept whatever it takes to get it up on the screen and make it worthy.
Trying to be witty leads to lying, more or less.
Donald Trump's message to people is that he's a disruptive force that can descend into Washington as a nonpolitician and try to change some of the morass that happens in Washington.
When I became the chair of the British Film Institute, I didn't understand how much of my time would be taken up with trying to make a case for the British Film Institute: what it's for, why it exists, why it needs its money.
