In the '80s, we were living in the U.S.S.R., where anti-Semitism was a deeply ingrained part of the culture. Being a Jewish person in the Soviet Union was not easy. Not that I remember any of that - I was barely old enough to chew back then - but for my parents, both Uzbekistan-born Jews, life was a struggle.
To me, it's really not about how I look - it's about who I can be. It is my job to bring the character to life and my duty to fit into the jigsaw in that story.
The experience of life that you and I have is pretty much a jigsaw puzzle in the box: Day-to-day experiences of disconnected pieces that don't seem to justify the efforts we make each day.
So now it is time to disassemble the parts of the jigsaw puzzle or to piece another one together, for I find that, having come to the end of my story, my life is just beginning.
I would love Jimmy Stewart to play my life story.
I think I land somewhere between Scorsese and Capra in what I'm drawn to emotionally; I'm drawn to very intense emotion. Capra freaked people out when they saw Jimmy Stewart lose it in 'It's a Wonderful Life.'
Jimmy Stewart lived for movies, fought for his country, and died for love. Now isn't that a wonderful life?
The last episode of Dallas was in '1991.' Unfortunately, it was a terrible episode to end the show on: it was a sort of 'It's a Wonderful Life' with Larry as the Jimmy Stewart character. In that episode, I was an ineffectual-schlep kind of brother, who got divorced three or four times and was a Las Vegas reject.
I don't wanna ever make jingles. I wanna do something that changes people's opinions and provokes thought and makes them think about how they should live their life and how they can better themselves and empower themselves.
Joan Crawford and Bette Davis are larger than life. They just are. They sucked all the oxygen out of a room: they're icons; they loom large in our imaginations. But the truth of the matter is both women were diminutive.
I connected very much with all the work of Joan Crawford because she started as a flapper. She used to dance and sing and she was very cute. She had something that was so different from what she is at the end of her life and she started in the silent movies and then went into the talkies.
For me, there is no greater sunshine in politics or in life than to have a job, security for your family, a good school place where you know your child is going, and the sense that if I put in, there will be a decent, secure retirement at the end of it all.
We strove for more than 60 years to give Joe DiMaggio the hero's life. From his debut at Yankee Stadium in 1936 until his death in 1999, DiMaggio was, at every turn, one man we could look at who made us feel good.
South Africa is a whole other world. I went to grade school there and high school in Johannesburg, and before that, my family lived in Kenya in Nairobi where my brother was actually born, and my sister was born in Capetown. I spent the first 10 years of my life in South Africa.
John Brown was clearly flawed in real life. He did some terrible things, but he did some things none of us would have had the heart to do. His moral leanings were unquestionably admirable.
James McBride's 'The Good Lord Bird' is set in the mid-19th century and is based on the real life of John Brown, the one who lies a-mouldering in his grave.
People like Howlin' Wolf, Bob Dylan, The Rolling Stones, John Lee Hooker, Nina Simone, Captain Beefheart - all of these artists were what I grew up listening to every day of my life. And there's a very healthy music scene in the west country of England, where I grew up.
I'm John Lee Hooker in the sense that he was a blues man and he played blues his whole life. I'm a rock guy and I'm going to play rock music my whole life.
John Lee Hooker became a friend of mine and I love all of his work. He was truly an icon. He lived the life. I miss him.
If one could have a wish, or an alternative life, I would've liked to have been John Lennon.
