Because we are no different from any animal, any insect or germule. We are not special, Cal. You, me, we all came from nothing, and that's exactly where we're all going one day, maybe soon, whether we like it or not.
The playoffs are a different animal, and any team can beat you on any day.
I'm actually sort of shocked that I was able to get a medal in 2014 and really have any of the success I had before because as soon as I came out, it was like a whole new world for me, and I felt so free, so confident, that it's actually shocking that I was able to compete any other way.
I wouldn't compare myself to any past Idol contestant, because I don't feel like I am like any of them. Maybe stories are cool but my story is different from most people's story. I don't like to compare myself to other people, I like to just be me.
In a foreign country people don't expect you to be just like them, but in Los Angeles, which is infiltrating the world, they don't consider that you might be different because they don't recognize any values except their own. And soon there may not be any others.
Freedom within any kind of social structure - the whole issue of exactly what the human animal is - is an ongoing preoccupation of mine. And I certainly don't think I've come to the end of that exploration, and with any luck, I never will. But I'm very curious about exactly what kind of beast we are. We're so complicated.
Better to be an animal than a man, an insect than an animal, a plant than an insect, and so on. Salvation? Whatever diminishes the kingdom of consciousness and compromises its supremacy.
Realistically, there is a danger, of course, when you're going into someone's living room as the same guy every week. But I don't fear it because, I mean, there's really nothing I can do about it. I can try to combat it through the work, and maybe make sure I don't do Sheldon 2.0 in any other projects. But it's just really hard for me to find any negative side effects from this experience.
I started out with nothing in the world but a kind of passion, a driving desire. I don't know where it came from, and I don't know why - or why I have been so stubborn about it that nothing could deflect me. But this thing between me and my writing is the strongest bond I have ever had - stronger than any bond or any engagement with any human being or with any other work I've ever done.
I don't do any special preparations before recording any number, nothing like deep breathing or meditation.
I don't want to repeat myself. I'm not going to play a guy like Allen in Happiness again any time soon because I did that and I don't want to tarnish or dilute that film by doing it again, maybe less well.
The only thing that made me, or any of us, special was that no one in the whole of history would ever see the universe exactly the same way any other of us saw it.
Silently the animal catches our glance. The animal looks at us, and whether we look away (from the animal, our plate, our concern, ourselves) or not, we are exposed. Whether we change our lives or do nothing, we have responded. To do nothing is to do something
Acting is like any other profession. I do not think stars need to have any hang-ups in public. I do not like to be treated like someone special - and this I say because I am normal and not because I want to sound humble.
I don't know that I would have the courage to come over to a new country where the religion is different, the language is different, where I don't have any money. The thought of starting over like that in the way that many refugee families have to start all over again - that's an incredible thing to think about. One of the things I tell about Refugee is that unless you're Native American or a descendant of slaves, your family immigrated to this country - whether they came over on the Mayflower or whether they came over on a raft last year.
Maybe I just have a different line than other people in terms of where my personal emotional space becomes public and private. There's almost nothing I wouldn't tell somebody about my quote - unquote "personal life" if they asked in any conversation. There's nothing I've done or said that's that great. I don't see anything I've done to be that different than any other normal person.
I don't like the word soon because you don't know when it's going to sneak up on you and turn into NOW. Or maybe it'll be the kind of soon that never happens.