Luckily, I was raised by a kind of gypsy family, which is why I always get along better with people who worked in circuses than with kids of other actors. My mom was so carefree with us in a beautiful way. We were used to sleeping anywhere.
People who know very little about ancient Egypt are most likely, if they know anything at all, to have at least a vague idea about the Pharaoh Akhenaten and be able to recognize the face of his beautiful wife, Nefertiti.
If people see me having dinner with a beautiful woman, they immediately believe that I'm having a love affair with her. Of course that's rubbish. I'm not a playboy!
To start telling people that you're beautiful, or just feel beautiful, just start acting like you are the most beautiful woman in the world. And it really improves everything! Because your sort of psyche responds to it - like this is truthful!
Directors are not worried about casting beautiful women, but they are not sure that they want to cast great-looking men. My looks have prevented people from seeing my work.
I get very nervous around famous people and I get nervous around beautiful women.
After over 50 years of headlining, I've been received very beautifully. But I always say, when you're onstage, you can't please everybody. I'm sure there are people who may not take to what I do, but that's OK.
Deals are my art form. Other people paint beautifully on canvas or write wonderful poetry. I like making deals, preferably big deals. That's how I get my kicks.
It is time for parents to teach young people early on that in diversity there is beauty and there is strength.
The kind of people I look for to fill top management spots are the eager beavers, the mavericks. These are the guys who try to do more than they're expected to do - they always reach.
Our public portrayal of fathers has shifted during my life. TV fathers have 'evolved' from real people like Sheriff Andy Taylor, Beaver's dad Ward Cleaver and Heathcliff 'Cliff' Huxtable, to cartoon dads like Homer Simpson and Seth MacFarlane's caricatures in 'American Dad!' and 'Family Guy.'
As a person of color, I was trained from very early on to see 'Leave It to Beaver,' 'Gilligan's Island,' or 'Hamlet' and look beyond the specifics of it - whether it be silly white people on an island or a family living in Nowheres or a Danish person - to leap past the specifics and find the human truths that have to do with me.
I had one guy pretend to be me, go to a hotel room, and tell the people at the front desk that it was me, and then he went in and stole all of our luggage. There's always that eager beaver that wants to be a part of the team and comes off as a sticky fly.
I went through the whole number, you know. The swing era, the boogie woogie era, the bebop era. Thelonious Monk is still one of my favorites. So a lot of these people had their effect on me.
As far as actors who pop up again and again in Japanese dubs, and because they're really good actors, people like Steve Bloom, not only in 'Cowboy Bebop,' but also he's sort of the de-facto Wolverine. If you're doing an animated Wolverine anything, Marvel usually just goes to Steve first because he's recognized as that voice.
I wanted to have lots of characters in 'Bebop' without white skin, and if people weren't used to that, well, maybe it would even make them think a little bit about it.
I've always thought that jazz needs to be heard by a wider audience in Puerto Rico. I want to put together a series of free concerts in the small towns - one with Miles Davis music, another with bebop, maybe Duke Ellington. I want younger people to see what is possible.
Malcolm X raised my consciousness about myself and my people and other people more than any person I know. I knew him before he became Malcolm X.
Groceries became a revelation: the people coming out with bundles of food. It's all like a great ceremony, and the whole drudgery of shopping has become my inspiration.
What truly matters is not which party controls our government, but whether our government is controlled by the people. January 20th 2017, will be remembered as the day the people became the rulers of this nation again. The forgotten men and women of our country will be forgotten no longer. Everyone is listening to you now.
