It often occurs to me that this is a strange way to make a living. But it's wonderful, too. There are many ways to read maturity, and I'm not fighting the instinct to simply enjoy that kind of nonsense. I love that someone would pay me to draw on somebody else's bottom.
I don't know exactly how I end up with some of these roles. It mystifies me sometimes, but I am a fan of sci-fi. I love being taken into a strange world, and when it's told with imagination and credibility, I love being taken on that trip. I always have.
What makes climbing great for me, strangely enough, is this life-and-death aspect. It sounds trite to say, I know, but climbing isn't just another game. It isn't just another sport. It's life itself. Which is what makes it so compelling and also what makes it so impossible to justify when things go bad.
When I was young I read 'L'Etranger' by Camus, and it made me aware of the strangeness of life.
I would often take this bus and go to a nearby village where I had hordes of animal friends. I was hardly around four or five years old then. The conductor was so used to seeing me hop on to the bus and get down at the same place, that he never asked any questions. The strangest part is, he never asked for a ticket either!
There's something so relentless and foul about Hitler and his people, and the way things progressed from year to year. It just got to me in the strangest way.
When I was very young in London, I had a bank account, which didn't have a great deal in it. I should think at least every three months the bank manager would call me up and threaten to strangle me because I had no money, and I was writing checks.
I want to be a man who serves my family, a man who increases justice in my community. I want to be all of those things, and yet it is just below the surface that I want to strangle somebody when they cut in front of me on the freeway.
When people laugh at me, they are not laughing in the way that they normally would at a comedian. They are laughing with relief, because the truth has been spoken, and political correctness has not strangled this particular gigastar.
I'm good at playing the emotionally strangled person. The woman who is in the worst place in her life. That's me!
Are you kidding? They had me at 'Star Wars.' The kid inside me would've clawed his way out and strangled me if I'd turned this job down.
For me, painting is a way to forget life. It is a cry in the night, a strangled laugh.
To me, regardless of who's in office, the government is strangled by business. And the government's priorities are dictated by business. I mean, why does America, even after healthcare reform, still not have free universal healthcare? I'm sure it has something to do with the insurance lobby.
Don't get me wrong. I don't mind playing bad guys. I want to play a bad guy. I want to rob a bank. I want to rob a bank in a film. I want to rob a bank in a film but do it with a gun - with a gun, not with a bomb strapped around me.
If you really want to torture me, sit me in a room strapped to a chair and put Mariah Carey's records on.
At Mass General in January 2007, Dr. Loeffler's team attached a ring-shaped metal frame to my head with four pins. Then I went to the radiation center, where they strapped me to the treatment table and secured the head frame so that I couldn't move.
I joined an all-girl band in Detroit and, although I was a pianist and drummer, I was asked to play bass because no one else wanted to. When I strapped it on, it fit me as good as my leathers. At the first gig we played, I looked out at the audience and thought, 'This is what I'm going to be doing for the rest of my life.'
I've been acting for 27 years, and anonymity has always been a part of what I do. Of course you get recognised every now and again, but 'Homeland' pushed me into a completely different strata, and that took me by surprise.
'Company' attracted a certain strata that acknowledged me as a good actor. But in terms of popularity, I owe everything I have to 'Road' because of the song, 'Raste raste, toofan sa.'
Giving voice to marginalised characters is extremely important to me. I want to explore the pain of disenfranchisement, the social strata and boundaries we create and how to make them more permeable.
