I've been asked many times if I considered myself a narcissist, so I looked up the real meaning of the word, and I came to the conclusion that indeed I am one. I think of myself as better than other people, not every person, but many, unique and talented, and I aim to success.
I always call myself a recovering narcissist. I lived my life thinking everything was about me.
There's always a version of me who is the narrator. And I make myself look better than other people.
I can laugh at myself because I've had to. Everything would have been much worse if I'd been the singing son of Nat 'King' Cole.
I've always wanted to be a Meryl Streep or a Natalie Portman. I want to do all kinds of different movies, to be a chameleon. I don't want to limit myself.
Playing in the National Football League, you're told, you know, where to be, when to be there, what to wear, how to be there. Being able to step away from that, I have an opportunity to look deeper into myself and look for what's real.
I find myself increasingly forced to think of my ethnic identity instead of the national identity I adopted as a boy in 1976. That is discomfiting for me, and a tragedy for America.
I want to show people that I am comfortable enough to go on national television and just be myself.
When I was doing fringe theatre, my ambition was to do repertory. When I got to rep it was to do national theatre; then it was t,o get a couple of parts in television. I never had this great desire to overreach myself. I was too busy enjoying acting. I was just obsessed with it.
I submit all my plays to the National Theatre for rejection. To assure myself I am seeing clearly.
I don't describe myself as a nationalist, but I do love my country.
I acted at school but got very bad parts - things that they'd made up in Shakespeare plays like 'Guard 17' - so I wrote plays and gave myself parts, then I wrote sketches, then I did stand-up. Even in the school nativity I was the emu in the manger.
I wasn't blessed with the natural ability to rein myself in.
When you're an actor or actress in this business, usually the natural progression is to direct, but a lot of times, we don't get a chance to get to it. Myself, I really want to get into it. I want to be the person who eventually doesn't have to be in front of the camera.
I don't know if I'm so much fueled by trying to one-up myself so much as passionate about coming up with new and greater challenges. I don't see it as a contest, but as a natural progression.
I have been passionate about dancing and acting as long as I I can remember. It was a natural progression to make it my passion, pursue it, learn more about it, and develop myself as a performer.
I love people, and I love to be with people and to make music with people, but my natural state is to revert back to being by myself in my house, which is cool because that's where I practice and write and listen and study.
I was brought up to express myself only when asked to express myself, and then to do so in a way that's pleasing to hear. But I've always had a need to make my presence known. I was just sort of born that way, I guess. It's my natural tendency.
I think acting is something that is within you. It's a very natural thing for me. It comes from myself, really.
If my life depended on being a social-media person in terms of talking myself up, I probably would be in trouble because - not that I wouldn't be able to step up to it - but I wouldn't love it. I wouldn't want to be that person; that wouldn't be my natural thing.
