There's one thing better than having a great actor, and that's having a great actor who's never done this kind of role before and is hungry to do it. They're testing themselves every day. They want to get out of their trailer and get to work.
When a PR person asks why is it a big deal that they got your name wrong or sent you a pitch on something you would never cover, it's because when you get hundreds of those a day, it's incredibly annoying. It's basically like having telemarketers call you all day long for something you never want to buy.
Most players who play tennis love the game. But I think you also have to respect it. You want to do everything you can in your power to do your best. And for me, I know I get insane guilt if I go home at the end of the day and don't feel I've done everything I can. If I know I could have done something better, I have this uneasy feeling.
You can never go more than three or four hours without having something to nibble on or eat - you have to graze all day long.
I don't write every day, but if I go more than a couple of months without writing, I begin to get a little nervous. I usually have bursts of poems. Five or six come together and then I slack off and want to do something else.
I love having that creative discussion where, at the end of the day, you both feel better for having done it. Maybe it's a typically Jewish thing, where you sort of go at each other.
I want to get something done but I am scared. I said I want to get a filler done. Very little, obviously.
With every project I've ever done, I've always treated it like I'm still in school. Each time you try to go a little further, get a little deeper, feel a little more, sculpt it a little better.
It's a risk casting anyone against type or what they're known to do. But there's one thing better than having a great actor, which is having a great actor who's never done what you're asking him to do. He's hungry to get out of the trailer every day and hungry to test himself.
A hard truth: that courage can be without meaning or impact, need not be rewarded, or even known. The world has not been made in that way. Perhaps, however, within the self there might come a resonance, the awareness of having done something difficult, of having done . . . something.
If I go racing tomorrow and I have five rides that all get beaten, all I want to do is get out there the next day and put it right. I hate having Sundays off; I hate having any day off.
It is on a day like this one, a little later, a little earlier, that you discover, without surprise, that something is wrong, that, without mincing words, you don't know how to live, that you will never know.
One of Dr. Johnson's ingredients of happiness was, "A little less time than you want." That means always to have so many things you want to see, to have, and to do, that no day is quite long enough for all you think you would like to get done before you go to bed.
If I was having a bad day, or if something was really getting me down -- boy troubles, whatever -- I wanted to go out and get a new piercing. It was definitely a release for me. Something that made me feel a little more strong or empowered. Because it was something that had to do with me and no one else.
Some weeks, I'll go super-hard at practice for two straight days, but then the third day, something happens away from basketball, and I'll lose focus. I'll say, 'I just want to get through practice. I don't want to conquer it today.' But then I'll go home and realize I missed a chance to get better, and it'll bother me.
Most Americans don't live their lives solely as Democrats or Republicans or conservatives or liberals. Most Americans live their lives that are just a little bit late for something they have to do. Often it's something they do not want to do, but they do it. Impossible things get done every day that are only made possible by the little, reasonable compromises.