I was on the board of Andre Agassi's foundation, and seeing the way it operated blew my mind. In 2002, I told my wife, I want to start a foundation to give back, I want it to be for kids in hard circumstances, and I want it to be culinary-driven, because that's who I am.
I want to be remembered for a body of work so that when the next guy comes up, he could think of Sterling K. Brown in the same way that I think of Andre Braugher and James Earl Jones.
I always had an eye toward the stage for the story of Hamilton's life, but I began with the idea of a concept album, the way Andrew Lloyd Webber's 'Evita' and 'Jesus Christ Superstar' were albums before they were musicals.
In a sense I portray myself in a very androgynous way, and I love androgyny.
Dressing in an androgynous way, mixing up the masculine and feminine, blurring those boundaries - I'm cool with that. No one should ever be limited by stereotypes of gender, just as no one should ever be limited by stereotypes of race.
Androgyny refers to a specific way of joining the 'masculine' and 'feminine' aspects of a single human being.
Android is one of the most open systems I've ever seen. What makes Android great is it's literally designed from the ground up to be customised in a very powerful way.
We run Android in a very open way and work closely with all partners. We work with Samsung, and I spend a lot of time with them. But we've always supported other partners.
I write and write and write, and then I edit it down to the parts that I think are amusing, or that help the storyline, or I'll write a notebook full of ideas of anecdotes or story points, and then I'll try and arrange them in a way that they would tell a semi-cohesive story.
I tend to develop my rambling anecdotes by actually getting up and performing them. That's the joy/horror of stand up - if you have the germ of an idea that you think might be funny, there is a way of finding out if it's funny very quickly.
The one thing Marvel does is think outside the box, going all the way back to Ang Lee directing the first 'Hulk.' They like to go outside the genre.
I didn't expect people would embrace 'Ang Probinsyano' the way they did during its first year.
Other than friends and family, my favorite things are New York and stand-up. I love doing comedy in New York - I can do way more stand-up here than in Los Angeles.
Maybe at 55, I would like to direct. I will go the Angelina Jolie way.
The domination of western values, beliefs and way of life has angered many from the east and in developing countries.
I obviously identify with the anti-authority figure. I've pretty much always had problems with authority, ever since I was a kid. But, yeah, it's not identifying, I think it's more a part of my natural DNA that I question anybody who has a plan. Everybody's got to have an angle; that's the way I grew up.
In a way, Anglo-Saxon poetry cannot be translated.
It is not an accident that developing countries - virtually the whole of East Asia, for example - view the role of the state in a far more interventionist way than does the Anglo-Saxon world. Laissez-faire and free markets are the favoured means of the powerful and privileged.
I'm an animal rights activist because I believe we won't have a planet if we continue to behave toward other species the way we do.
In my movies, there has been little to do in the way of animal rights. I have never worked in a movie with animals. No horse-riding, no trained dogs, lions, bears. A few actors, but what could I do? We had to have them.
