I had to learn a lot about myself during the situation with my brain tumor.
My tunnel vision work ethic is very hard to come by, I believe. I have had an unwavering faith in myself and my career for as long as I can remember.
I start with the history, and I ask myself, 'What are the great turning points? What are the big dramatic scenes that are essential to telling the story?'
I often think if you have time to sit around the house feeling bad for yourself, you have time to tutor a child. I'm guilty of that exact thing. I will spend more time sitting around feeling bad for myself than actually helping somebody.
I have two tutors - a maths tutor and another tutor who does all the other subjects. It is part of the deal with myself; I really want to finish school. I like learning and education, and I think it is really important.
I always did TV commercials and made great money to put myself through school. That became guest starring roles on TV shows.
After 9/11, I had just become an American citizen, and I remember sitting in front of my TV set watching the news of the attacks, in tears. I remember thinking to myself, 'Nothing is ever going to be the same in this country for people who look like me.'
I see myself directing, writing, doing my own TV shows and movies.
Writing for myself and writing for another artist are two very different experiences. When I handle both the story and the art, I have full control. I can endlessly tweak every word and every line.
My toughest criticism usually comes from myself. As my editor can attest to, I'm never done tweaking a book until the production department has to rip it from my hands!
So that between the Cape of St. Maria and Japan we were four months and twenty-two days; at which time there were no more than six besides myself that could stand upon his feet.
I am Christian, and I was very vocal about that at first until people started using it against me. Now I've learned to keep it to myself. I don't think it has anything to do with my job or how present myself. I feel like it got really twisted.
There are whole months at a time when my head is so full of ideas that I wake in the middle of the night and lie in the dark telling myself stories. There are also long, dark nights when I just know I'll never write another word: I'm finished, empty, a husk... Oh dear, yes, twitch, yawn, how I've suffered insomnia for my art.
It's about pursuing it rather than waiting to see what comes along. That's partly because I found myself getting typecast, as everyone does unless they pursue roles that are very different from what they've done before.
Sometimes I can think of so many ways of expressing myself that I feel I'm an old typewriter, and too many keys come forward at once - and I get jammed.
I think people hear and feel the genuine nature of my passion for the causes. Specifically, with the non-profit in Uganda, my mother is the president, and she was an African politics professor for almost 50 years, so I think people know that I align myself with people who know what they're talking about.
While shooting in Uganda in 2011, the conservative evangelical pastors I was filming - the most ardent supporters of the country's now infamous Anti-Homosexuality Bill - discovered that I myself am gay.
I made myself famous by writing 'songs' and lyrics about the beauty of the things I did and ugliness, too.
A family friend was staying with us once and had brought over a ukulele. I just loved the way she played it. I saved up the money from my 11th birthday and went out and bought one for myself.
The only instrument I play myself is the ukulele.
