I feel a particular sense of responsibility when you're taking something from the magazine directly and putting it in video. You can't be too flat. You need to have personality. You can't just scream out to the viewer. You need to have a fresh take on something or have a new look or have an interesting style, or be so raw that it resonates and is authentic. I think authentic is a good word. It's overused, I know, but I think it comes across in the video medium. If you can make a video authentic, it comes across.
Fear is your best friend or your worst enemy. It's like fire. If you can control it, it can cook for you; it can heat your house. If you can't control it, it will burn everything around you and destroy you. If you can control your fear, it makes you more alert, like a deer coming across the lawn.
I'd be more likely to go for somebody who is like me. Well, I like creative people, so whatever that means... Yeah, authentic and creative.
We kind of established in Sons of Apollo right from the get go that it would be a very collaborative process musically, but after that, I was going to take the reins and control everything else beyond that the way I did with Dream Theater.
Being producer you're still going to have to sell somebody who's going to give you the money on the idea and everything like that. But it does give you a little bit more control if you're thinking in that creative process; it gives you more control to tell the story you want to tell rather than sort of just reading a script that somebody else wrote and says, "Yes, please, you can hire me for this job." So it's a little bit more hands-on, a little bit more closer to the heart.
The really expert riders of horses let the horse know immediately who is in control, but then they guide the horse with loose reins and very seldom use the spurs. So it was with our chief [William Rehnquist]. He guided us with loose reins and used the spurs only rarely to get us up to speed with our work.
I'll often use my real stuff in my writing because it comes across as more authentic.
But revision is a creative act, not merely an analytical imposition of rules of style on a more creative first draft. That's a myth - that the first draft is more creative and everything after that is ruining creativity.
The only way you can really deal with creative people is with very loose reins.
But I do think that women who spend all their lives on a diet probably have a miserable sex life: if your body is the enemy, how can you relax and take pleasure? Everything is about control, rather than relaxing, about holding everything in.
Michael Fassbender is just a creative force: he finds authenticity in singularity with what he brings, and it's always authentic. He doesn't try to be creative and different for the sake of it.
I would say I am more concerned with the plays I'm going to do than the movies. I'm more comfortable in a play. In film, there's always a certain sense of control, of holding back. The stage is different ; there's more to act. There are more demands put on you, more experiences to go through.
You have to keep your sanity as well as know how to distance yourself from it while still holding onto the reins tightly. That is a very difficult thing to do, but I'm learning.
Steadfastness, that is holding on; patience, that is holding back; expectancy, that is holding the face up; obedience, that is holding one's self in readiness to go or do; listening, that is holding quiet and still so as to hear.
I've always tried to control everything and every aspect of my life, and this is maybe the biggest lesson I've learnt with motherhood - you just can't control everything, and I'm much more relaxed now about unexpected changes and things that happen.
It costs a lot to be authentic. And one can't be stingy with these things because you are more authentic the more you resemble what you've dreamed of being.