I like working. I wish I could say I made a deliberate choice to comedy, but it's just what came my way. It's what the studios wanted to make. Some of my friends were doing it, like Will Ferrell and Adam McKay, and they offered me 'Talladega Nights.' It's just nice work if you can get it. It's a joyful day at work, making your friends laugh.
The most challenging work and the best work I've ever done was in a thing I did for PBS called 'Lemon Sky', a play by Lanford Wilson. I think it's the rawest, most complex work that I've had to do, and the thing I'm most proud of.
Call it vanity, call it arrogant presumption, call it what you wish, but I would grope for the nearest open grave if I had no newspaper to work for, no need to search for and sometimes find the winged word that just fits, no keen wonder over what each unfolding day may bring.
I am not a fan of referencing your own work when it's in a different universe than what you're doing. That, to me, is a wink at the audience, and winking isn't actually cool when you're not, like, 10.
A lot of the work I did with WWE had very strong comic book ties that were more than just a wink at the audience. There was a period of time when I had a clear protective face mask and a hood over my head that correlated with Doctor Doom.
If your work is done on the phone, then surely you can set up some kind of wireless system. If your work involves reading or writing reports, then this too could be done outside.
Is it possible Hanukkah doesn't inspire folksy songs? Plot lines may be a part. The Christmas story has a lot of material to work with. There's Jesus and his birth, the wise men, their gifts and tons of frankincense.
I will say this: I know no wise person who doesn't read a lot. I suspect that you can read on the computer now and get a lot of benefit out of it, but I doubt that it'll work as well as reading print worked for me.
I don't have much of a wish list, but I'm dying to work with Erykah Badu. That's pretty much my dream collaboration.
There are a lot of classic Goapele tracks that are obviously me. And I'm also just trying to keep evolving and grow as an artist. I've always had a wish list of producers I wanted to work with. I just wait until the feeling is mutual and go into the studio to see what we can come up with.
I'm not cooking every day anymore, and that's the biggest withdrawal. Cooking is honest work. Now I don't know how to measure myself.
If there is one abiding theme in the gym, it's the withering work in the ring. Those not fit do not survive.
The nurses' job is emotional and distressing. Their day-to-day work is dealing with people withering and falling to pieces. So black humour is essential for them cope with that. It's just a consequence of their environment.
I think it's so fun when I get to work with women writers in particular because we really understand the core story or foundation as women. That's so important to me that the authenticity is there, you know, from the place that I speak from for my women. Having other females with me helps me dig deeper.
I feel responsible that everyone has a really wonderful experience and to do the best work possible, and to always know my lines and to always be on time and to bring a level to the show in terms of quality that other people will follow.
It's a question of dropping the armor and getting up and doing the work you want to do. And film at first is frightening because you are like, 'What's that camera doing?' But then it becomes family and therefore a really wonderful experience.
It's a wonderful feeling to work in a country where the government's first concern is for its people, for all its people.
I've been working with Disney all these years doing voice work, and now I'm signed with Disney Fine Arts, doing 'Beauty and the Beast' oil paintings. So it's been an ongoing wonderful job.
My parents have a wonderful marriage, but they have been together since my mother was 12, married when they were just teenagers and are barely ever separated. They even work together. As a result, I have always thought of marriage as involving the loss of a certain amount of autonomy.
The President has a wonderful sense of humor, which is one of the reasons it is so much fun to work for him.
