I constantly deal with being called Shaft, and I vacillate back and forth with people coming up to me about it. But it never ceases to blow me away with the impact that character had on my life and my fans' lives.
I actually like getting out of my comfort zone. It shakes me up.
Shakespeare didn't work at all for me.
'Animal Kingdom' feels like a suburban Melbourne version of 'The Godfather 'to me. It's epic and Shakespearean in its story, and yet you still feel like you can reach out and touch it.
My dream as a youngster was to be like Olivier. To be a great stage actor. To be a great Shakespearean actor. To me that is the Olympics of acting.
As an audience, if you see 1800s or something, it more often seems that the actors are carrying the weight of the time. It always has a Shakespearean tone to it. To me, that always feels very theatrical and very unrelatable.
I'm struck these days by how often people come up to me and ask to take a photograph instead of shaking hands, meeting one's eyes, and having an actual conversation.
Some people say that 'Drag Race' is about glory and immortalizing yourself in the Hall of Fame. For me, it's about shaking RuPaul down for her money.
God is shaking me.
I hated painting, and I quit right after high school because I was continually told how terrific I was... it made me feel shaky.
I'm not happy all the time, and I wouldn't want to be because that would make me a shallow person. But I do try to find the good in everybody.
My mother taught me something at a young age - she said 'you are the company you keep'. To define yourself by some label or some level of resources - that's pretty shallow.
I started growing up in a hurry and taking a lot of the philosophy I'd heard from church as a kid a lot more seriously - especially the Ten Commandments - and wondering how 'Thou shalt not kill' could be so absolutely ignored. It took me until I was in my 40s to write what I was thinking as a young soldier.
If someone says, 'Democracy is a sham, those people don't speak for me... the system's rigged,' you say, 'Vote.' Someone says, 'I was making a statement by not voting,' and then you say, 'Well I can't hear it.'
I feel like, maybe in the '90s, 'Rookie' would have been shamed for trying to reach a lot of people or trying to be 'mainstream', but I'm so pleased that our readers are happy to see me promoting the 'Rookie' yearbook on TV or whatever.
I am shamed to realize that in my marriage, my daughters never heard their father and me fight, which also meant, perhaps, that we didn't truly communicate.
I own a shameless number of ethnic necklaces acquired at local markets in developing countries or inherited from my grandmother. These have seen me through meetings in Davos and visits to refugee camps.
I think I've always been pretty shameless about seeking out people much smarter and much more experienced than me from the very beginning.
It is publication week for my new novel 'The Sunshine Cruise Company.' Go me! Anyway, I may as well get the shameless plug over with right away - buy it. You'll like it. It's about a bunch of old ladies who rob a bank.
I have to say a part of me was a little terrified to be only looked at as Shane from 'The L Word.' I was very conscious of doing something that would steer me clear or just steer me in a different direction.
