Michael died five years ago this January, and the first thing that really struck me about the script was the part about her peeling off from the funeral and just getting into a rowboat and having a real kind of cry where nobody was.
When I finally got the chance to do 'The People v. O.J. Simpson,' my peers embraced me with the same attitude. They didn't make me feel small or insignificant. They treated me as a peer. It was a wonderful experience.
I was a highly sensitive kid, sort of an old soul, and I felt like a lot of people in my peer group didn't fully understand me, or I couldn't fully be myself. I just wasn't engaged in a way that was fulfilling me.
I think every artist subconsciously wants to evolve themselves. Sometimes they get stuck in ruts because of pop culture, peer pressure, stuff like that. But what excites me most is exploring my own musical insights and expanding upon them.
My peers inspire me, especially being a newer artist.
I never intended to go to Broadway. I was very happy being in an Off Broadway theater and having an Off Broadway life. What it did to me is try to fit a round peg - that's me - into a whole bunch of square buildings. I just didn't fit.
You start chasing a ball and your brain immediately commands your body to 'Run forward, bend, scoop up the ball, peg it to the infield,' then your body says, 'Who me?'
My mother bought me a brand new suit for going away to college. We were poor, but she wanted me to have that. It was a powder blue suit with peg pants - you know, skinny at the bottom. I think I made quite an impression with that.
A journalist asked this to my father. He spent a day with me and interviewing my friends/colleagues and didn't understand how I could be the one that created 4chan and, as he put it, 'couldn't understand how to fit the square peg into a round hole.' The best way I have of describing it is, 'I didn't define it, and it doesn't define me.'
I started with Bobby Darin. He signed me to Capitol when I was 15. I was 14, getting ready to be 15. Then the next encounter I had was with I think Peggy Lee. I sang background with The Blossoms with Darlene Love.
If I'm driving to L.A. and have anxiety about making the drive, if I've got Peggy with me, we're cool.
I used to be with a publishing house called Roosevelt Music. A gentleman there told me he had seen Peggy Lee perform Fever in Las Vegas and I found out later she wanted to record it.
My father gave me some advice when I was very young - whatever someone tells you in the future, don't forget Pele is the best.
Unfortunately, I never saw Pele play. What I know of him is through my grandfather, my dad's dad, who used to talk to me and tell me about how he played.
There would be no debate about who was the best footballer the world had ever seen - me or Pele. Everyone would say me.
The African greats who were playing when I was growing up inspired me - players like George Weah, Abedi Pele, Tony Yeboah, Kalusha Bwalya, and all the others who made Africa proud.
'Dirty Jobs' is a fun, simple little show with huge themes under it. For me, it's penance, it's redemption, it's a sweaty mess.
People sometimes ask me if it is a sin in the Church of Emacs to use vi. Using a free version of vi is not a sin; it is a penance. So happy hacking.
I was terrified of girls until sophomore year of high school. I couldn't even borrow pencils from them. I'd have to wait until the teacher called me out on it, like, 'Does anybody have a pencil for Teddy?' because I'd be too scared to ask the girl next to me.
I was this little blond girl with a guitar case bigger than me - it was pink and sparkly at the time. But I always took myself seriously, and I think that people took that seriously. I would tell them about my goal list, and they listened. I was like, 'I want to be the one that swings the pendulum.'
