We want to pigeonhole things and people, but it is absurd to regard me just as a furry wig-and-britches actor.
Furthermore I will just have to see what the future will bring me. But a change of food whets the appetite.
In many ways I'm similar to Barack Obama, who also has a strange name but was raised by a white American mother. His background is far more complicated than his name would suggest. Furthermore, the fact that I was a child during the hostage crisis has caused me to equate being Iranian with being alienated.
While I was boxing professionally, I never thought about my looks. The furthest thing from my mind was 'messing up my pretty face' when I was on my way to the ring to meet my opponent. Yet, people I'd meet along the way would always ask me if I was worried about my looks. Then they would go on to say that I was 'too pretty to box.'
'Kiss Land' is the story after 'Trilogy'; it's pretty much the second chapter of my life. The narrative takes place after my first flight; it's very foreign, very Asian-inspired. When people ask me, 'Why Japan?' I simply tell them it's the furthest I've ever been from home. It really is a different planet.
I remember in 2016 when I got signed to my record label Good Soldier, which is a very small indie label. They took a big risk on me because ballads were the furthest thing from cool at the time.
All these other nations seem to appreciate what I'm doing and they want me to play the furthest out things.
My brothers came home with country, jazz, everything... it was always very normal to me to make any type of music. It was possible to fuse all the sounds, so it never sounded confusing to me to mix jazz and dubstep.
That's kind of fuse for the show - those first 10-15 seconds you're onstage. The curtain drops and you see the crowd for the first time and they see you for the first time. The response and the energy that's going on right there - to me, that sets the tone for the rest of the night.
'Look at Me' started with Rockford, Illinois and New York and the question of how much image culture was changing our inner lives. That's an abstract idea; you don't think that's going to be a rocking work of fiction, but it seemed to fuse in a way that was interesting.
I see dancehall reggae and hip-hop as fused together, When I was a kid, they were the two kinds of music that spoke to me and said 'Move!'
I have a nostalgia for the years I was growing up and experiencing new things for the first time - so the late '80s and early '90s are always fascinating to me. Those were the times that I was being informed about a lot of my tastes, and so the memories are fused with a lot of emotion.
For millions, Roger Ebert will be remembered as a writer and television personality who brought a sense of passion and excellence to his craft. For me, he is a man who fused joy and courage as few others ever have. My life was enriched by having such a friend; it is poorer for losing such a friend.
I hate that expression, 'fusion.' What it means to me is this movement where nothing ever really fused.
I grew up listening to bachata, to some of the greats of the genre. But it was very natural for me to create this type of fusion and to incorporate new beats.
'The Human Condition' is me exploring some ideas and thoughts that I have that don't fit one sound. I'm giving emotions a sound - it's a fusion of genres. There are four EPs in 'The Human Condition'; each title is a different emotion.
I never officially came out in any kind of really public way. I just always lived very simply and openly, but the press has never made a big fuss about me or said anything to me.
The fuss that actors began making about the difficulty of shifting to sound struck me as perfectly foolish.
I definitely live to eat. I love food in every way imaginable, and it does not have to be fancy. Whether we stay in or go out, I like a hardy meal. My grandmother taught me how to cook, and it was all about no fuss and lots of it.
There are people who claim to be instinctive cooks, who never follow recipes or weigh anything at all. All I can say is they're not very fussy about what they eat. For me, cooking is an exact art and not some casual game.
