The most irritating movie character for me was that cradle-to-grave commie, Mary Poppins.
When I was three years old, a nanny took me shopping and I saw large cut-outs of Mary Poppins in the store and yelled, 'That's mummy!' These women walked by and said, 'Oh how cute. That little girl thinks that Mary Poppins is her mum.'
I think the idea of 'Mary Poppins' has been blowing in and out of me, like a curtain at a window, all my life.
Nothing I had written before 'Mary Poppins' had anything to do with children, and I have always assumed, when I thought about it at all, that she had come out of the same wall of nothingness as the poetry, myth and legend that had absorbed me all my writing life.
My very first movie, 'Mary Poppins,' which I talk about, it just turned me into an obsessive, creative creature who had to sort of reply to the experience by drawing things, making things. It was like it forced - it made me into this obsessive, creative creature... I don't know any other way of putting it.
To me, it wasn't 'Star Wars' that shaped me; it was more 'Mary Tyler Moore' and, nowadays, 'Louie' and 'Girls.'
I wanted to go to the underdog team - I wanted to build something somewhere like a lot of the other guys who stayed home at Maryland, like Vernon Davis and players like that. I wanted to stay home and do it in front of my family and my friends... Those thing matter to me.
Nobody can make me cry in public. I'll punch them first before they make my mascara smear.
For mascara, I'll just use whatever I have in my bag. I'll use anything. I feel like, from drugstores to a Saks, they are all the same to me.
I live in Beverly Hills and I'm proud of it. The only things I miss are pie and mash shops and football games. I've lived in America longer than I lived in England. When I first got here, it just felt right to me. I like the open space, and the weather's great.
People often ask what my favourite food is, but the answer depends on what I last ate. I love sausages and mash. But if I'd already eaten them for lunch, then you asked me at tea-time, I'd probably answer 'crab salad.'
I have memories of my grandfather Kirkman making mashed potatoes that were so good because they tasted like a bowl of butter. I love my mom's brownies. My favorite thing about both of those recipes is that someone else made them for me.
But when I lose my temper, I find it difficult to forgive myself. I feel I've failed. I can be calm in a crisis, in the face of death or things that hurt badly. I don't get hysterical, which may be masochistic of me.
I have only an appetite for masochistic truth, and only box-office collection figures interest me.
I'm not a masochistic reader. If something is just too dense or not enjoyable, even though I'm told it should be good for me, I'll put it down. That said, most of what I read would be considered high-end or good for you, I suppose. But, I also think that reading should be enjoyable.
I only hope that I can regain my own identity once I decide that 'Perry Mason' and myself have come to the parting of the road. 'Perry Mason' has become a career for me... all I know is that I work, eat and sleep 'Perry Mason.'
I had never been in charge of anything. I'd always worked for someone. I worked for a furniture warehouse. I did masonry. I always had a boss yelling at me. So I'd never been in charge of an organization.
'Masquerade' is the autobiography of Wyclef Jean. A lot of people know me through my work with Carlos Santana or Destiny's Child, winning all those Grammy Awards, but you do not know what is going on inside me.
I think, in some ways, I like it when people tell me what they're thinking. I would rather have it that way than masquerade as if you're totally unbiased and objective.
I guess I feel I'm masquerading as an adult when I don't have the kind of friendships and routines that I thought you were supposed to have as an adult. It's the 'Friends' lied to me! syndrome.
