I went back to Australia to do a show called 'The Beautiful Lie,' which is a retelling of 'Anna Karenina' in a six-part mini-series - a modern, contemporary version.
It's modern day. It is modern day. Some of the cars are older but it is absolutely modern day. There are modern cars in it, modern people, modern clothes, modern talk. We wrote 'Valentine' to sort of pay tribute to all the old slasher movies that we grew up with and I think that we did that.
I’d ruin any day, all my days, for those long nights with you, and I did.
I did The Seagull, the Chekhov play, on Broadway, a couple of years ago, and I had done it in London, and I became completely obsessed with the character, Nina, that I played in that. She's an actress. I couldn't find a play after that, that I wanted to do, because I couldn't think of doing anything else. Every part is a disappointment, once you've done that part.
I did a film which was considered an independent movie with Dustin Hoffman and Andy Garcia called Confidence, and that's the type of film I was willing to take a chance on that because of the caliber of people involved with the film.
All of modern acting comes from Stanislavski, who was the Russian partner to Chekhov. When Chekhov was writing his plays, Stanislavski was running his theater. And Stanislavski really was the first inventor of modern acting and then everything that came out of the method and Stella Adler and the great teachers really came out of him.
I did sing in another film called 'Empire Records' which is a cult film. 'Grease 2' is also a cult film. You either love it or just think the original was better.
I get inspired by so many things every single day. Things I see every day, conversations, arguments, day to day occurrences, good days, bad days, loneliness, happiness, anger, anxiety, pressure, relationships......EVERYTHING.
I did a film called 'Nightfall,' based on Isaac Asimov life, which was directed by an American director. However it was a short film.
A movie I must have seen 10 times is 'Jonathan Livingston Seagull.' It's an old movie, but still such a beautiful message. If I had only one film I could take on my computer on a desert island, I would take 'Jonathan Livingston Seagull.'
In the 84 days after Beijing I had, on average, three things a day and one day off. I didn't sleep in the same bed for more than two nights in a row. It sounds a bit pathetic but it was exhausting - it was like really intensive training with no rest days.
We made one film called Thy Neighbor's Wife in which I got flogged at the public whipping post for adultery. I did my best acting in that film, I guess.
I've just directed a film called The Great Debaters, which is inspired by a true story about a young college debating team in the thirties and two of those people are still alive and we put them on tape on the film and I'm sure that will be added to the DVD, and to get the opportunity to do that is very cool.
I've always found it best to have a routine. I go to my study at the same time every day and climb into my bay window. I may not be inspired every day, but on the days I am, I need to be in place to write. If I'm not particularly inspired, I'll revise or do research or correspondence.
But since her earliest days, America has inspired people from all over the world. Inspired them with the hope that one day their own countries would be one like this one.
This book is called "Blue Nights" because at the time I began it I found my mind turning increasingly to illness, to the end of promise, the dwindling of the days,the inevitability of the fading, the dying of the brightness. Blue nights are the opposite of the dying of the brightness, but they are also its warning.