Despite the sometimes sordid turns his life took, Michael Jackson always held my fascination, like he did for most of us.
I have no regrets of fighting for four years to get 'Sordid Lives' on the small screen. It was a fantasy. I mean, I got to work with amazing actors like Rue McClanahan!
People where we come from hear so many lies that the truth stands out like a sore thumb.
I consider myself an athlete. I train like an athlete, I eat like an athlete, I recover and get sore just like any other athlete.
I did The Sorting Hat, and it was the Gryffindor, and I was like, 'I'm not doing it again. It could be something bad.'
I definitely like sorting stuff out, and I have the enthusiasm to try and help.
I don't like labels, but I do have blue eyes and I'm soulful, so what am I going to do?
I loved things like Destiny's Child, and Amy Winehouse's first record came out when I was 11 years old. But as a young, young child, I was just surrounded by Stevie Wonder, Whitney Houston, Chaka Khan - just massive, soulful voices.
I don't like being forced to reduce my thoughts to sound bites.
It looked like 'The Sound of Music' would even surpass 'Ben Hur,' and I thought it would be unfair for me to have done both. I thought I'd leave something for somebody else. That's a quip.
At the age of eight, I auditioned for 'The Sound of Music' and made it through to the third round, where we all stood in a row like the Von Trapp family and had to sing.
The coolest thing for me to do was listen to Pearl Jam's 'Ten,' Nirvana's 'Nevermind,' or Soundgarden and play along to it and think about how awesome it would be to be in one of those bands and be up on stage. When I'd close my eyes at 13 and dream of being in Pearl Jam or one of those bands, it was exactly like how it is now with the band I'm in.
I like Journey, Bad Company, Soundgarden and Aerosmith.
I'd really like to do a movie, either as a producer or director. My ultimate fantasy would be to direct a movie and produce the entire soundtrack. I don't really see myself acting.
I like soundtracks and I like film.
Finding original source material is not easy, but when something special like 'Edge of Tomorrow' comes along, everybody recognized it. I wasn't swimming against the stream. Warner Brothers immediately supported it, Tom Cruise signed on instantly; Emily Blunt, who was our first choice, signed on immediately.
I feel like, as an industry, we've gotten too dependent on source material originated in other mediums.
My first book was on the grittier side of life. A week before being published, I realized all of my main characters come from single households. That was something that, when I lived in South Bronx, that's what it was like.
Coming from a country that's rapidly changing, I love the idea of a place like South Dakota where nothing has really changed.
South Dakota, like a lot of rural states, small states, there are small cities with a very big work ethic, very common sense approach. That has certainly shaped me.
