I would never have wanted to play with Magic Johnson, I would never have wanted to play with Michael Jordan, I would never have wanted to play with Karl Malone or John Stockton in my prime. We wanted to play against the Shaqs, the Kobes.
You wanted to compete against Michael Jordan, because they were the best. You wanted to beat them. Never once in my mind, I went, 'I would love to play with him.' I was always like, 'Man, we've got to beat them.'
I grew up a Michael Jordan fan; that was my first idol. But my true sports idol was Deion Sanders: he was the person I always wanted to be. I wanted to play two sports professionally, which would never happen, but to me, that was every kid's dream.
I called Scott Rudin, and I told him I wanted to do the play [Fences], so that's how the ball got rolling. I never said, "I'll do the play, and the next year I'll do the film, I just wanted to do the play."
I always found it a great challenge playing against Michael Jordan, to play against Magic Johnson, to play against Larry Bird, to play against all those good players because it's something that you can take away from it.
Since I was five or six years old, I just wanted to be a professional football player. I wanted to play against the best players. I wanted to play in big stadiums in front of big crowds, and I was desperate to play for my country one day, and thankfully, I was lucky enough that happened.
I never had any expectations. When I was 11, I just wanted to play for England. I didn't know when it would happen, how it would happen. I picked that dream, and I wanted that dream.
I was never on a mission to be an NFL quarterback. I wanted to be a good high school player, and I worked hard at that. That made me good enough to play in college and then I wanted to be a good college quarterback. During college I played well enough to make it into the NFL. I never took it for granted and really wanted to play hard at each level and I have always had a lot of fun doing what I wanted to do.
I never wanted to be like other blues singers. I might like hearing them play, but I've never wanted to be anyone other than myself. There are a few people that I've wished I could play like, but when I tried, it didn't work.
Charlie Christian had no more impact on my playing than Django Reinhardt or Lonnie Johnson. I just wanted to play like him. I wanted to play like all of them. All of these people were important to me. I couldn't play like any of them, though.
I never wanted to sing. I just wanted to play rhythm guitar - hide in the back and just play.
I've been a feminist since the day I was born. I wanted to play football. I didn't want to play with dolls; I wanted to play with boys and didn't understand why I couldn't.
I just wanted to play and play and play. When everyone left, I'd stay on the court and hit serves or play against the wall.
I wanted to play in the NBA, I wanted to play sports, I wanted to do all this. And I have. I think I am becoming a man.
My father loved to play the game, he never became a professional but when he was younger everyone would say he was good enough and when I heard people talking about him, I wanted to emulate him. So I started to play.
My parents were opera singers. I didn't want to play opera because I wasn't good enough. I didn't want to play their music; I wanted to play the music that I wanted to play, and I'm so lucky that today I get to play that music, even though I don't like every song I write.
I never really planned on any of this being a career; all I knew for sure was that I wanted to create, I wanted to play music, and I wanted to share music.