I decided at 15 that I didn't want to be one of those artists that gets up and sings love songs they don't mean. I decided that I was going to be me to the fullest extent, that my songs were going to reflect relationships I've had, things I've been through, and even the stuff I'm embarrassed about.
Cancer taught me to stop saving things for a special occasion. Every day is special. You don't have to get cancer to start living life to the fullest. My post-cancer philosophy? No wasted time. No ugly clothes. No boring movies.
People continue to put our league down. It's because we're women; that's the fight. And it's a majority of black women; that's the other fight. But we represent America to the fullest. And it's weird to me that people wouldn't want to support that. I don't get it.
It's okay to take yourself too seriously if you're a serious actor and you've got the scrubs on. And then with me, it's kind of like, well, I'm a comedian, I'm making fun of everybody and everything. And I'm making fun of myself. I'm having fun making fun of and for other people.
People are always telling me how much they loved 'Empire Records.' We had so much fun making that movie. I was so young - 16 or 17. I still had a tutor!
'The Unsinkable Molly Brown' was my favorite for me to be in because it was all dancing. There were other musicals that I made with Donald O'Connor and Gene Kelly that were wonderful pictures, and we had a lot of fun making them.
Asylum was good exposure for me and it is still shown quite often on television. I remember the special effects people had fun making a little doll that looked like me - which is not so easy - and it had to move along the floor.
I'm free of stress and worries now because if I don't like something I'm doing, I just find the fun in it instead of being miserable. Let me have fun with the people I work with, let me have fun making money - when I grew up so poor, ya know?
Career wise, I'm looking into different opportunities to do a TV show, but in some way that's not a goal in itself. To me, the goal is creating content and doing fun stuff that I'm proud to show. I don't want to do a TV show for the sake of doing it.
The Pop art I wound up doing came to me purely from 'Mad' comics. I loved the idea of doing fun stuff. I met an art dealer who wanted to show the work - that was in January 1962 - and that was the beginning for me.
It just seems like the most fun thing in the world. I've never met people who have kids who haven't looked me in the eye and been like, 'It's the greatest thing that's ever happened.'
I've been in some situations where people have treated me like a fascinating toy. You know, it's just like an interesting kind of fun thing to have a play with. It's very weird for me. I feel like a tiny baby.
Training a dog, to me, is on a par with learning to dance with my wife or teaching my son to ski. These are fun things we do together. If anyone even talks about dominating the dog or hurting him or fighting him or punishing him, don't go there.
The reason for not getting married was that I just didn't have a partner to get married to. Climbing mountains was more attractive to me than marriage, or other fun things like that.
One of the most fun things for me, as a writer, is when readers ask questions like, 'Oh, I noticed that you have a lot of water and baptism imagery in your book. Did you do that on purpose?'
I don't necessarily enjoy being at the gym. It's something I have to do, more than something I look forward to doing. But it does enable me to do fun things.
That's my fun time so, to me, doing my homework, studying on what I do, watching the movies, listening to music, all that inspires me so I focus a lot on that and practice.
I never do a show where the people just sit there and look at me. They always sing along. It's going to be a fun time.
Spring Training is a fun time for me.
As a painfully shy kid, my fun time was locking myself away and watching movie after movie after movie. Watching a good performance, to me, was like getting a new toy.
