Speaking in Hindi has helped me a lot as I can tell my stories with the exact idiom in which they come to me. I think it also helps the audience when I am speaking in a language that is non-elite, so to say, as my stories are also from that perspective.
George Saunders is the funniest. He makes me laugh in the way I want to laugh - with so much empathy and deep understanding of people. He illuminates things and people I've never thought about - and I've dedicated my life to the study of people and their idiosyncrasies. He is light years ahead.
I really hate relaxing. I've done three movies in a row, worked for two years straight, and to me, idle time is the devil's workshop. I like to focus on something.
Believe me, I do not like idleness but work.
I love the ubiquitous idly-dosa combination. In fact, that was my pet name as a kid! In school, I would bug the canteen boys to get me my daily quota of idly!
My dad is a writer, and to see him always in front of a typewriter gave me the inspiration to write. He was my idol, my hero. I wanted to be just like him.
I had this sort of idolatry for certain actors who preceded me, people who inspired me, so I'm honored to be that way for young actors.
My Tarkovsky idolatry was at its peak, but 'Nostalghia' really didn't do anything for me. 'The Sacrifice' was similarly disappointing for me. Next thing we knew, he was dead.
Getting to share the ring with guys I idolized is never going to stop being surreal for me.
To know that a kid could come up to me in 20 or 30 years and say, 'Hey, here's a picture of us. I met you at a meet-and-greet, and I idolized you as a child. I'm a WWE Superstar, too, because you inspired me.' That's crazy to think, but it could happen. I made it, so if I can make it, anybody can.
Acting comes natural to me. What I do enjoy is meeting people that I've idolized for years. I mean, I was talking about bringing up a child with Edie Falco yesterday.
The fact that I'm not a good musician - I throw it around, tell people that - it doesn't matter that much. It only matters to me, because I idolized good musicians. I absolutely worshiped them.
Bruce Lee was the first star I idolized. Growing up as a Chinese American, there weren't many people like me on the big screen.
I worked with everybody, the best, and they actually paid me money to stand next to the people I idolized.
I grew up in Harare, Zimbabwe. And I had a pretty idyllic childhood. I felt that I was kind of this outspoken girl, I was considered. I was a girl who talked a lot and didn't think my voice had any less value than anyone around me. Apparently, that was strange.
The stories my pupils told me were astonishing. One told how he had witnessed his cousin being shot in the back five times; another how his parents had died of AIDS. Another said that he'd probably been to more funerals than parties in his young life. For me - someone who had had an idyllic, happy childhood - this was staggering.
It was clear to me that if I could get through Princeton at the top of my class, I could do anything in the world.
I realized that people had an unreal image of me, that somehow I was a god on Mount Olympus. I decided that if I were going to make use of my role as a Supreme Court Justice, it would be to inspire people to realize that, first, I was just like them and second, if I could do it, so could they.
They asked me to sing - actually, it was Dee Dee, because he had seen me in Sniper and thought I wasn't like anybody else. Everybody else was doing an Iggy or a Mick Jagger.
I really don't care what people call me. I don't like 'Iggy,' but I'm used to it now.
