Doing Quotes

I'm coming up on 40 next year, and after making so many records and doing music for so long, I'm looking for a change and a different perspective. And every now and then, I think I have something I want to say.

I am currently doing about 30 charity auctions a year.

I like to work. I enjoy once a year, doing a film.

I loved doing My Favorite Year, which was great fun, and The Ruling Class, which I made with all my chums.

Yeah, I did some small parts in high school and the first year of college and then fairly soon thereafter I settled into the backstage scenery, and then at the University of Maryland I was doing posters for their productions.

That was my challenge as a composer. Like with anything, to keep yourself interested in doing what you do, you set yourself challenges. So I said, Okay, I'll try to write a hundred tunes in a year.

When you're doing a big movie, you're gone for 10 months to a year.

Maybe I've lost a little, but I think everyone does over time. People have been writing that I'm getting old every year, and eventually they're going to be right. There's nobody in this game that's doing the same things they once did in the peak years of their career.

I'm lucky if I find one movie a year that's worth doing, and when I do find one, it usually only takes 20-30 days to shoot.

I want to make sure I don't interfere with the success of that team next year. I don't see any way I could go to practice like most of 'em do, and not hurt the team. I'd go nuts if I tried doing that.

I am an old, old friend of Aaron Sorkin's, who is the executive producer and writer. He had been talking about doing a political show for a long time and I had been interested in it for a long time. The moment I became available, he called me last year and asked me if I wanted to do it and then I just had to audition for the powers that be, and I got it.

I actually started, this year, doing some voiceovers. I did some radio spots, and some games.

But I can't wait to watch the Tonys this Sunday. I'm really glad Broadway is doing so well this year, especially with its straight plays. It's been a wonderful year.

As a journalist I'm comfortable doing library research, and I did a lot! I had a fellowship at Radcliff for a year which gave me access to the Harvard system.

I have a 92 year old father whose doing beautifully who lives in Chicago and a sister and a nephew and a niece and I love coming back and try to do so fairly often.

During the writer's strike I was walking a line and ran into Jack Black and he said,'We're doing Airborne 2!', and I asked, 'Are you kidding?', and he said, 'Yeah.' I like 'Airborne,' its very pure.

Yeah, I love doing ensemble pieces. You get to meet so many new people and make new friends.

My parents are desperate, they keep saying: 'Please stop doing these angsty roles; make it easier for us.' So, yeah, I'd love to do some comedy.

Oh, yeah. I know Dizzy. For years he's been my buddy way, way, way back. Dizzy is one of the most astute guys and one of the most learned guys in the world and knows exactly what he's doing musically.

Well, yeah. At a certain point, you've got to be really honest with yourself. Like, 'Why am I doing this? What are my motivations?' Like, if you get into it because you want to be famous? Then you've got a long row to hoe. But if you really feel like it's a labour of love and it's something you're actually legitimately good at, then it's not that hard to keep plugging away.

Yeah, touring can get rough some times and draining, but I always have to pinch myself and realize that I'm doing what I love.

Yeah, I mean I've definitely had a bunch of action scripts sent to me, but again I'm a stickler for directors. If it's like an action flick with a great director then it's like 'Oh let's look at this thing,' but if it's just like a shoot-em'-up with a first time director. I don't know if that's the trajectory I want to take with what I'm doing.

When I made it, I still didn't wave the flag and say, Yeah go Asian people. I do want people to know that about me, but I always felt like at least musically, let me just do what I do and be the best at it. Which is what I'm doing right now.

Feelings are universal, and if an actor's doing his job, I think he's making people sit there, and if it's in a movie or a theatre, going 'Hmm, yeah, I know that... I know that.'

Yeah, you know, I performed occasionally. I was in such despair because I just - if I didn't have my music to connect with, I couldn't figure out what I was supposed to be doing. There was never a 'B' plan here; it was just this. So it took me a long time to find my way.

You know, people who almost - yeah, there's a slight reluctance there - but there's also an ambiguity. What are their morals? What is their code of living. What are they really doing here. And it is just interesting because it is never black or white.

You can have the greatest player in terms of mastering an instrument and you could be yawning your head off when you hear them. So, it's not what you do, but the way you're doing it and in the end that's all that we have.

I just felt like reflecting on my junior year, when I didn't know what I was doing, I left a lot of stuff out there. Actually, I gained close to 700 yards more and I took myself out of a lot of games.

I've always done things the hard way. I was born like a piece of tangled yarn. The job is trying to untangle it, and I'll probably go on doing it for the rest of my life.

The Yale group was doing the Harold. So by our senior year we were trying to do the Harold. Again, we had no idea what we were doing. We had one guy in the group who was pretty experimental; he would kind of push us to do weird things. It was really fun, a great experience.