Young people in the business have grown up and made the wrong decisions, or bad decisions, and haven't been good role models. To be someone that people look up to is important to me.
Now, if someone wants to spit on me, I just roll up the window of my BMW 540i.
My little boy, West, and my wife, they're my rock and that's the thing that keeps driving me to do better at what I do professionally. There was a time in my career where I had been on this huge roller coaster ride and I'd really got in the spot where I could've hung up it and just been a songwriter.
Struggle teaches you a lot of things, and I am happy that I witnessed a roller coaster ride. The journey has improved me as a person and made me more mature.
It's not beyond me to take my kids to see a good popcorn movie that's a roller coaster ride.
Life's been a rollercoaster for me, but I think we can all agree on enduring ups and downs. I've yet to meet a person who hasn't gone through something major in their life.
Absolutely, it's a really weird stage because at the minute, I can walk down the street and be unrecognised, lead a normal life, but my label and everybody is warning me that will be changing and I'm in for a rollercoaster ride.
Writing is like a rollercoaster ride for me, an adventure. I love exploring the world through 'playing' people who are absolutely nothing like me.
Every now and then, I have blissful moments of thanking God for all the amazing things that are happening. When I leave the White House after just meeting Obama or when I see my face on the cover of 'Rolling Stone' or when I meet someone who tells me that their daughter is inspired by me, those are moments that are incredibly joyful.
I'm a Roman Catholic. Or was. I was brought up that way and used to say my prayers every night, but I don't pray to God any more. I might use the usual phrases I picked up from my parents, 'Oh, if God spares me next year...' or 'Please God...' but they're only phrases.
With my Roman Catholic upbringing, I have a set of principles that serve me well in good times and bad.
I love Elmore Leonard. To me, True Romance is basically like an Elmore Leonard movie.
The big things in the average person's life are the romances that they have - and then the destruction and loss of them. Parents, siblings, children, the death of parents, family tension... these are monumental things. They struck me as being interesting to write about. I didn't have a very exotic life, but all this stuff happened to me.
I didn't have romances when I was in school. Girls didn't want to go out with me because I was blind.
I wasn't allowed to leave Romania. That made me mad. You just want your freedom. You want your space. You want opportunity.
My mother never watched me train in Romania. She wasn't allowed, it just wasn't done back then. My training was paid for by the government. My parents were not at the Olympics with me, either. I never expected them to be.
I came here from Romania when I was 12 years old. I had an accent. High school was tough a little bit for a few years. I wanted to fit in. I wanted to be liked. I wanted to be good-looking. I wanted to be popular. I spent a lot of time thinking, 'What are these people going to think of me?'
In my early 20s, living in a communist regime in Romania, success to me simply meant leaving and coming to America.
I don't think Hollywood knows what to do with me. I would imagine that when it comes to romantic comedies, my name would be pretty low down on the list.
Woody Allen is really the ultimate. I love that he believed in himself enough to do what he did. And I have that same feeling - that there's nobody that looks like me in movies, nobody would cast me as a romantic lead, but I want to do it and I feel confident that I can.
