I often wonder what I will be remembered in history for. Scholar? Military hero? Builder?
I grew up with J. Edgar Hoover. He was the G-man, a hero to everybody, and the Federal Bureau of Investigation was the big, feared organization. He was ahead of his time as far as building up forensic evidence and fingerprinting. But he took down a lot of innocent people, too.
Bip is the romantic and burlesque hero for our time. Bip is a modern-day Don Quixote.
My dad is like a cactus - introverted and tough. I'm a people person, like my mom, but I got my competitiveness from my dad. He came to this country from Belarus with nothing and built a real business. He's my hero for giving me that need to run a business and for having enormous confidence in me.
When I became 'The American Dream,' they needed a hero down here. I had no money - I couldn't buy a car without being tied under - but I had to have a Cadillac with blue stars on the hood no matter what it cost because just driving in it will set how they look at me and perceive this guy; they'll know.
'Easter' is a movable event, calculated by the relative positions of sun and moon, an impossible way of fixing year by year the anniversary of a historical event, but a very natural and indeed inevitable way of calculating a solar festival. These changing dates do not point to the history of a man, but to the hero of a solar myth.
Calculation never made a hero.
My hero in comic books is Jack Kirby: 'Spider-Man,' 'Fantastic Four,' 'Captain America,' Marvel Comics. He was really the basis for Marvel Comics.
My sporting hero was Drazen Petrovic, the NBA basketball player, who was killed in a car accident in 1993. He was a good friend, an unbelievable player, and I dedicated my Wimbledon win to him.
I felt like an extraordinary hero. I was only five or six and I had the whole of life in my hands. Even if I had been driving the carriage of the sun I could not have felt any better.
Maybe the best example of the unmuscled hero is Humphrey Bogart in 'Casablanca.' Bogart was 15 years older than Ingrid Bergman, and it did not matter at all. He had the experience, the confidence, the internal strength that can only come with age.
Fidel Castro, whatever people may think of him, is a hero in Latin America, primarily because he stood up to the United States.
Oh God, my choice of film has never depended on the hero. In fact, you will see that some of my categorical mistakes had nothing to do with the hero in it.
The cello is a hero because of its register - its tenor voice. It is a masculine instrument, whereas the violin is feminine because of its soprano pitch. When the cello enters in the Dvorak Concerto, it is like a great orator.
I started making music... I guess I was 12, and I started playing 'Guitar Hero.' And you know, it got to a point where on expert, you can only exceed to a certain point. And so, you know, I was like, 'Let's play real guitar. Let's not waste more time.' So, I got my mom, I told her to buy me a guitar for Christmas, and I started making music then.
I'm a gypsy: no education, no schooling, nothing. I don't care what people think of me. I don't care about being a hero, a role model, a champion.
I don't want to play the lead and look like a hero. I am open to do character roles; what is the harm in it?
My theory of characterization is basically this: Put some dirt on a hero, and put some sunshine on the villain, one brush stroke of beauty on the villain.
'Watchmen' is a politically charged story, and it explores exactly what a hero is, how the world would treat them and how they would react. It was the first time I read a superhero story that explored that situation. These are very real people with very real problems.
The hero of the 'Peanuts' is Charlie Brown. I play the dog that sleeps on the top of his dog box who's a philosopher. I'm drawn to that. So I'm drawn to Barbossa as I'm drawn to Einstein, because they are outsiders, and I suppose, as a character actor, that's the turf that you're locked into, in a way.