I think it's because in America you always get the sense that if you fail, you can just pack up your things and go somewhere else and try again. But in England, it's so geographically small that if somebody succeeds here, it reduces your chances of succeeding.
Take your time, however long the book needs. I've seen a lot of promising careers go into decline because writers succumbed to the pressure to write faster than was comfortable for them or the story.
When I did 'Amadeus,' I hadn't done a play for five years. And I was so happy doing it and felt so foolish that I hadn't done a play for such a long time that I wanted to go back and really kind of reach out for a classical career.
The only foreign policy advice I heard from China was when they said to Sudan, 'Don't go back to war.' That's all they said. They didn't push anything else.
It's my mission to sue the MPAA and take them down. I don't know how to go about doing that. But to me, it seems like it's something that has to be taken care of.
Music became less understandable in the wake of the new MTV era. You weren't supposed to be anything other than a pop star, to not go deeper than that. It was really strange. It was suffocating, image-wise. What you could talk about in a song changed; if you were misunderstood, you were really misunderstood - taken literally.
If you're going to go through hell... I suggest you come back learning something.
Actors don't generally go asking other actors for advice too much, but I'll take suggestions wherever I can.
In the early 1980s, I got into a war with my management - they just kept on suing me and I lost everything. So I had to go out on tour to make sure the electricity stayed on.
When the writing is going really well, whole days and weeks go by, and I suddenly realise I have all these unpaid bills and, my God, I haven't unpacked, and the suitcase has been sitting there for three weeks.
I always have a suitcase ready to go. My wife and I are both very much like this. We're both vagabonds, and we have been since the time we were married.
If you don't have content, you don't sell hardware. We need a suite of content of really fun, compelling experiences that aren't just hardcore game-oriented, and when that's good enough, it'll be an easy decision to go to the consumer market.
We can certainly go further than cats, but why should it be that our brains are somehow so suited to the universe that our brains will be able to understand the deepest workings?
During my years in the Navy and in the White House, I was involved in assessing how a war with Iran would go. In summary: It would be ugly.
With fashion, you go deep into a shoot for one day, but a movie lasts so much longer. It's literally like going to summer camp.
In earlier times, so many people sang much more. You know as a kid you'd go to some kind of religious training and or summer camp or whatever it was and you'd learn to sing a lot of songs.
My grandma had a kids' clothing store for over 30 years called Shannon and Company, and my sisters and I used to go and work there in the summers.
You have to know when you're at the top of your particular mountain, I guess. Maybe not the summit, but as high as you can go.
You know what we say in the Hamptons: If you have to come out on a Friday afternoon or go back on a Sunday night, you're not rich enough to have a house there. So, you have to be able to come and go when you feel like it in the Hamptons.
I always go to church on Sundays and Bible study on Tuesdays.
