In my early twenties, that's when I really began to write. Before that, I was too busy working, keeping myself going.
I look at myself and pick out the things I don't like. No matter how much I work out, I never get muscle tone in my butt and hip area.
I'm Serena Williams on the court, but away I have so many different names. I call myself Butterfly.
When you first get money, you buy all these things so no one thinks you're mean, and you spread it around. You get a chauffeur and you find yourself thrown around the back of this car and you think, I was happier when I had my own little car! I could drive myself!
Everything about my journey to get Spanx off the ground entailed me having to be a salesperson - from going to the hosiery mills to get a prototype made to calling Saks Fifth Avenue and Neiman Marcus. I had to position myself to get five minutes in the door with buyers.
I rely on myself very much. I just think that you have an instinct and you go with it. Especially when it comes to deal-making and buying things.
I do feel kind of guilty sometimes 'cause, like, I could buy myself a $5,000 dress or a $3,000 dress, and I'm buying these things, but I'm knowing that my cousin need money for the rent. And then I gotta tell myself, 'Stop feeling guilty. You worked for this.'
The greatest pleasure when I started making money was not buying cars or yachts but finding myself able to have as many freshly typed drafts as possible.
I can't distract myself enough here, for sketches to a new opera are constantly buzzing around in my head, to the extent that I need all my strength to wrest myself from them.
It takes a long time to drag myself out of bed, and at night I'm buzzing. As a young man it was helpful, but now I'd like to be tired when I go to bed and alive in the morning.
I played piano for cabaret stars and stuff and then eventually moved from my hometown of Perth in Western Australia to Melbourne, and somewhere in there, I decided to book myself a room and do a cabaret show of my own material.
Cafe De Flore speaks of love, its joys, its pains and its dramas - to love and to lose. This story upset me, I was upside-down, in the depths of myself.
What I try very hard to do is have an hour or so in the morning when I leave the house and don't have my phone with me. I'll go sit in a cafe and read and handwrite in my notebook and not be facing a screen. My head will be clear. I will be able to hear myself think. Because honestly for the rest of the day it's just screens, screens, screens.
A lot of people didn't know why I went to Cal. The Bay Area, Silicon Valley, I wanted to put myself in that position where I'm not only successful on the court but off the court.
World-building is my favorite pastime, so with me, I'm always about reining myself in. I don't want to lose too much of the mystery by hammering every detail to death. I did fiddle with lots of maps for 'Glass Sword,' as the second installment sees Mare, Cal and company traveling throughout their country, and that's always fun for me.
I think there's a tendency for actors like myself, and I don't mean to generalize myself, but I've played 'men's men,' if you will, characters that are simmering rage and calculated. There's a trend not to play anything that is opposed to that.
But I wanted marriage for myself. I was not calculating about it. I wish I was more calculating.
Becoming a parent has changed the risk calculus for me. But it might be age, too, and seeing a lot of friends die in the mountains. Will I take the same risks I took in my 20s? Probably not, but I will always push myself in the mountains.
I don't think I'm a great singer myself. I'm all right. I've worked with different writers, different producers... I've just been blessed with the caliber of people I've been able to work with.
There are times when I'm super-overwhelmed, and everything feels like it's hitting me in the face at once, but I think what's keeping me calm, and who I am by staying true to myself, is my whole family being so supportive and keeping me grounded. They treat me the exact same way they treated me years and years ago.
