God bless him, I mean a lot of times you get non-actors on a set and they get really self-conscious, especially when doing something crazy like singing along with Phil Collins. They get sort of reserved and self-conscious. Mike [Tyson] completely trusted Todd [Phillips] and totally put everything into it.
When you are self-conscious you are in trouble. When you are self-conscious you are really showing symptoms that you don't know who you are. Your very self-consciousness indicates that you have not come home yet.
It's very easy I think when you're a creative person to wait for the right thing and to start getting self-conscious about how you are going to express what you do and what's special about you. I would say in general, a lot of times the answer is that you just dive into something and you find your own voice through that process.
In Italy, you're in your comfort zone when it comes to language, lifestyle, your habits and preparations, and moving abroad is not easy. It's not easy to carry over your own ideas about football, your own methods. You have to get everything across in a different language, and that wastes a lot of energy.
I don't like the camera. I get very self-conscious with it and then spend way too much time not looking self-conscious instead of being free, as I do on stage, to do my work.
I think the most important thing in life is self-love, because if you don't have self-love, and respect for everything about your own body, your own soul, your own capsule, then how can you have an authentic relationship with anyone else?
If you think about what you do, if you become self-conscious about it, you've got to be very careful. Because I really like to write without self-awareness of what I'm doing.
It's so easy to get caught up in your own self-doubt when you're writing. It can be so easy to tell yourself, "Who am I kidding?"
I think our brains does have a tendency to be true to its own ideas and statements. Everything we do and everything we think about is a belief. Until we get to the point where we look beyond our own ego-self, and to some degree beyond our own mind, we are always going to make assumptions and have beliefs to make our brains feel more comfortable. And if we can get to a point where we embrace that uncertainty and doubt, and be willing to learn from that and to explore that, I think that that could be a very positive experience.
I think my voice worked out fine, but it was a lot of work for me. And I was very self-conscious about it. I was a bit self-conscious about writing lyrics too.
I think if you feel weird and self-conscious about that kind of stuff - which happened to me at some points - that means your ego is really kicking in. You can understand how people get to be assholes in music business because it's like you're getting pumped full of your own thing so much, you get ungrounded. That's a dangerous place to be.
If you think your demeanor is mellow or not particularly charismatic, the material can life you higher. So write everyday, and get onstage or in a coffee shop where they are doing open mice, anywhere you can perform even if that means starting your own open mic night - and be your own self.
I think I had a tendency to get stuck inside my head and go to some very dark places in my mind, and get stuck there. I couldn't see a way to get out.
Figure our what it is you don't do very well, and then don't do it. I'm not beating myself up about doing everything perfectly. The litmus test I always use for myself is: "Okay, if you won 20 million tomorrow in the lottery would you still being doing the same thing you are doing now with your life, Dough? The answer is "yes". I'm always very conscious of that.
In my mind, I'm doing everything, but in reality, I'm doing very, very little. You come up with one idea, one moment, one line that leads to something and you feel like it's easy. And then, you sit back and think there would be no show without that.
It's easy to get jaded. It's easy to get lazy. It's easy to get too self-centric, like, 'Why me? What about my needs?' It has nothing to do with that. But you see, you are the thing you are selling whether you are a director or an actor in this business. It's very tough. The town doesn't realize that its greatest resource is its people.