Growing up, I would just sit in my room and watch Detroit news. I was obsessed with Rich Fisher and Amyre Makupson and, of course, Bill Bonds. He was such a character. I just really liked these people. I'm just really a nerd for it.
I really was kind of like a musical nerd. I would watch VH1's 'Behind The Music.' That was heavy when I was a kid. I would sit up and want to watch that all day instead of going outside sometimes.
I got into one of the schools I applied to because of the essay I wrote about Holly Hunter's character in 'Broadcast News.' She's the only female producer on this news network, and she's really good at her job, but she allots time in her day to just sit at her desk and cry. And then she's just back to work. I find that really effective.
While other rich people might be like, "Once I'm rich I'm going to go on a vacation to wherever," but instead they just keep wanting to be more rich. It just seems like it would be fun to do whatever you wanted. If I were really rich I would be flying places, I think.
I focus on fashion of course, I love it. I may go buy an outfit and get dressed just to sit on the couch and watch TV at the crib so on the outside looking in people cold better word it. It's really me just being me.
I just had such a blast coming up with this corporate dweeb [in the Sex Tape], a sort of nerd who was also doing coke and listening to death metal and was obsessed with Walt Disney art. I just felt it was a type of guy you hadn't really seen before, and I was so happy with how it came out.
Where I grew up, in the Detroit area, there was a really good station. Sometimes you would hear songs for the first time on the radio, and if a really special song came on, somebody would turn it up, and everybody would just stop talking.
All my friends were doing just dumb stuff that kids do, like making out with people at parties and starting to date... I didn't know any gay people growing up or any queer people growing up, and so I just really felt alone and kind of lost, and I just wasn't experiencing life.
I watch a lot of news, and I watch musical shows because I think the music of the young people is really their news reports. They let you know how their country is going through their eyes, and about their experiences in the everyday shock of growing up.
My dad was a huge Yankees fan, huge Jets fan - he's really into sports. He had all sorts of memorabilia and cool things around the house. I would always just sit and watch Yankees games with my dad. Growing up, I was just very involved with the Jets, Yankees and sports because of my dad.
I grew up on the west side of Detroit - 6 mile and Wyoming - so I was really in the 'hood. And I would go to school at Detroit Waldorf, and that was not the 'hood. Growing up in Detroit was good. I had a good perspective, a well-rounded one, and not being one-sided.
Growing up, I didn't really watch the Victoria's Secret fashion show too much. I really just saw folks who weren't real to me, so it didn't really interest me.
I'm really shy, man. I don't really talk much. I just read, sit in my room and just read graphic novels because I don't have many friends and many people that like to talk to me.
I wasn't even aware that there are different styles of taxidermy, traditional and rogue. I wound up really liking the rogue stuff the most, just because it is more artistic and people can go anywhere with it. That stuff I really liked. Honestly, I would have liked to buy some of those pieces.
I wouldn't describe myself as a do-gooder. That's really more my wife. I'm kind of just the obsessed guy who's been writing and making movies since I was a little kid, just in a room and make it.
I liked Bollywood a lot growing up; I just liked the idea of seeing people that looked like me on a big screen, that alone just does so much for confidence. I'm a super visual person, I need to see something before I do it.
In high school, I listened to Lady Gaga and I was really obsessed with just being who you are and owning that experience - she was a really big inspiration in that aspect to me and my friends, who were young and growing up, and making our way through the city and the world.