There is currency to celebrity, or celebrity is a currency. You can spend it in a lot of ways, or you can squander it. You can be taxed, as well. I really started thinking long and hard about how to use that currency as long as I had it.
Sure, I suffered a lot. But it’s not like the end of the world and it’s not who I am. I lead quite a pleasant life and I’m able to divorce a perceived reality from my actual experience of life.
I like acting for myself as a director. I act and I know that I’ll have a chance to have some say in what gets used and that I’ll be able to give myself enough takes and be on the same page as myself about how the scene should play.
My mother went to Radcliffe, and rather than just trying to get rich, she wanted to be a teacher and taught for over 30 years in the public schools. She’s definitely got some war stories.
I’ve seen high and lows. When things go well that doesn’t make me feel like some genius. Nor will I allow the next disappointment to make me feel like a complete failure.
I’ve finally learnt how to say, ‘No comment’. To appear in the tabloids is a real learning curve and a steep one at that. You had better learn quick or you get burnt.
There’s a lot of romance to sort of living by your own rules and sort of not subscribing to what society tells you to do, but society pushes back pretty strongly, so there’s a lot of compromise that goes with that.
I’m sure I can make a movie that doesn’t feel like a seventies movie! But the truth is, that’s my favorite era in American filmmaking. To me, those were the great years.
It’s important for me to try my hand at philanthropy because I want to leave behind a record of someone who did more than just gobble up stuff for themselves. I realized that a life lived for yourself is not much of a life.
My professional success is really important to me, and my career is really important to me. It’s the most important thing to me outside of my family. I take it very seriously and work really, really hard at it. Family comes first, but this is something that’s really important to me too.
Memories, all those little experiences make up the fabric of our lives and on balance, I wouldn’t want to erase any of them, tempting though it may be.
Yes, I’m going to be the President of the United States. You know why? You think you can get chicks by being in the movies? You can really get chicks by being the President.
