You might be like, 'I want really big hits.' But when you get really big hits, and your label is making $150 million, they are people who are now interested in what you do. They are going to begin to tell you what to do, and so you become important. So your creative freedom - you're not going to have that again.
I have many hits, big hits, that have been written by people I don't know. In almost all my shows, people say, 'Chente, here's a CD.' When I get home, I listen to them all, and what I like, I record.
Most of the time, when I had hits as a soloist - maybe not so much with Simon & Garfunkel - I was surprised they were hits. I didn't know what the hits were. I never thought that 'Loves Me Like A Rock' was going to be a hit, or 'Mother And Child Reunion,' or '50 Ways To Leave Your Lover.' They didn't sound like what the hits sounded like at the time. Radio was more open to things that weren't exactly what every other hit was.
I've never been the big recording star I'd love to be some day. I've had lots of hits off and on through the years but I've never had the success of other artists - one hit after another back-to-back-to-back and big hits, where every song is going to be number one. I'm not greedy or nothing. I just want everything. Is there something wrong with that?
It doesn't get any more underground, conscious or indie than Macklemore, Ryan Lewis, but because they got a couple of really big pop hits, actually some of the biggest pop hits that hip-hop has ever seen, people are missing that part of their story. People are not counting that blessing.
When you're doing things like Glastonbury main stage, and there's 80,000 people and your hits are going off, it's at those moments you sit back and breathe and take it in, man, cos it might never happen again.
Publishers are very risk-averse, so they lean towards licenses and sequels. But the fact is that even those are not guaranteed hits. So, if 'playing it safe' does not guarantee hits, they might as well leave it up to the really creative, risk-taking people, because they couldn't do any worse.
Chris Gayle is the biggest hitter. He hits long, he hits big, he is a big dude.
When the band were really big and we had massive hits, I was always stressed-out and insecure. I thought I wanted the band to be really popular, but when that happened, there was so much pressure to keep it going.
I feel like we're all here on this planet, and intimacy is important. I can't bear small talk, it's awful. I want to get beyond that thing of discussing how the weather is a bit better today than it was yesterday, and how this is a nice restaurant. I want to get to what are the problems, what's really going on. Are you in love? Are you in a lot of pain? What's really going on in your life? I'm interested in that area, whether it's on stage or in real life.
When 'Frozen River' started to get really big, I was four months pregnant. So when these agents and directors wanted to meet me, I was coming in pregnant, and people didn't really take me seriously. They thought, 'This woman is not going to shoot another movie again. She's going to become a mom, and that's what happens.' But that was not the case.
I want an iPhone 5, someone said something nasty on twitter, or my boyfriend isn't texting me back, like whatever the thing is that seems so major in your life, when a real disaster hits you suddenly strips it all away and you see what's really important and who you really are.
When you - when someone dies in your family and you think you're over it, and then you wake up in the morning and it hits you, 'I won't ever see my brother again. I won't ever see my mom again.' And it just kind of hits you like that.
If you're going to win games, you're going to have to come up with the big hits. That's the bottom line.
I know I play a lot of jocks, but I'm actually a really big board game and video game nerd. It's one of the most interesting fields of entertainment because you get to create your own role and create your own rules. Some people get so creative with it, and I'm also super competitive. I'm a really big nerd.
There will always be economic pressure to make hits, identify hits, and then exploit hits. And you're going to exploit them with as many episodes as you probably can.
If a defender hits you and you stay down he might think he's got the better of you, so to get up and keep going is important.