All through college, I was searching for characters that would make me unique and set me apart from the typical ventriloquist with the typical dummy that was the little boy, cheeky hard figure like Charlie McCarthy.
I was a hard-workin' little boy. Oh, I worked. Pullin' cotton, shockin' grain, cuttin' wheat, loadin' wheat, choppin' cotton, cleanin' chicken houses, milkin' cows, plowin'.
What might be taken for a precocious genius is the genius of childhood. When the child grows up, it disappears without a trace. It may happen that this boy will become a real painter some day, or even a great painter. But then he will have to begin everything again, from zero.
My childhood dream was to study mechanical engineering. After reading 'The Mysterious Island' - which I read 25 times as a boy - I thought that was the best thing a person could do. The engineer in the book knows mechanics and physics, and he creates a whole way of life on the island out of nothing. I wanted to be like that.
As much as I liked Wolves as a boy and it was a childhood dream to play and perhaps manage for the club, I've come to Bolton and this is where I want to stay.
'The Chimney Sweeper's Boy' began differently from any previous book I'd written. It actually derives from a story a friend - the novel's dedicatee, Patrick Maher - told me.
Miramax seems to be showing the same faith in Roberto Benigni's 'Pinocchio' that the Republican Party showed in Trent Lott; the live-action version of Carlo Collodi's fairy tale about the wooden puppet whose only ambition was to be a real live boy was sneaked into theaters Christmas Day.
I had a lot of jobs before I got into music. When I was 15, I was a copy boy for the 'Evening Chronicle' in Newcastle. Then I was a journalist. I value those experiences - I got to see how the world works.
I'm just a wee, chubby boy that happens to sing songs.
I was a chubby boy. My pants used to wear out in the middle, and it was because my legs used to rub together. I wasn't obese, just chunky.
I came up the old-fashioned way - tea boy, cutter, focus-puller, cinematographer - but I wasn't myself old-fashioned.
I cannot take away the fact I am a small-town boy from India, from a lower-middle class family, and was actually standing in front of De Niro - not on an equal level, but as an actor, on the same pedestal.
In my class - in all fifth-grade classes - we were required to read 'classics,' books like 'Shiloh,' which is about a white boy and the dog he rescues. And 'Old Yeller,' which is about a white boy and the dog that rescues him. And 'Where the Red Fern Grows,' which is about a white boy and the two dogs he trains.
I am just a nice, clean-cut Mongolian boy.
Growing up in the Boroughs, I thought I must be the cleverest boy in the world, an illusion that I was able to maintain until I got to the grammar school.
As an actor, to go and see those shows - great plays like 'Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?' and Clifford Odets's 'Golden Boy' - it's so exhilarating. I'd personally love to perform the role of Jerry in Edward Albee's 'The Zoo Story.' He's a transient, lost soul, and an example of humanity at its rawest.
When you're a young boy, you're looking at older men for role modelling. Before I loved De Niro, I loved Clint Eastwood; I loved John Wayne. And James Bond.
Clooney is just a pretty boy, man, and that's it, OK? I carried him on my back long enough. I'm on my own.
I can't understand it when people are closed-minded. I mean, boy, have I made mistakes and been very wrong. I can't tell you the amounts of times I've been let down, but I still try to see the best in people.
We moved there a year ago, just as a weekend place. Then we decided to move out of London completely. We will eventually have to work it out a bit more, because you can't have a little boy living with his sisters like that, can you? But we like the idea of closeness.
