For Plotinus, what really exists are the Platonic forms, so the true nature or form of things like justice, beauty, maybe numbers, things like that, and these he associates with the intellect because they're the objects of intellect, they are things that intellect can think about.

I think, very often, we're addicted to procedurals, those good guy/bad guy shows, and the 'problem' with procedurals is they all follow the same formula: The bad guy does his thing, the good guy goes after him, and in most cases, the good guy figures out who did it and catches him.

There's only a handful of people who are just purely, inherently funny, and I'm not one of them. I need content and a situation. I don't just walk on the screen, and people go, 'Ha ha ha!' There are people like that, and they can do almost anything. It's the Christopher Walken Rule.

The continued existence of wildlife and wilderness is important to the quality of life of humans. Our challenge for the future is that we realize we are very much a part of the earth's ecosystem, and we must learn to respect and live according to the basic biological laws of nature.

You could make a feature about the world of tickling. You could include female ticklers and you could find out why people are ticklish, but I don't think it would be a great documentary, when you're spending 90 minutes just finding out about the physiology and psychology of tickling.

Actors are very often people who are placed in a position where they think they have to be grateful for the job and have no control over what they play and how they play it. I was not taught that way. I completely disagree with that. I think that you have more control than you think.

You have more creative freedom with writing, in certain ways, because you can create everything that happens. But, as an actor you also have creative freedom because you don't so much focus on what has to move the story along, and only on how your character is reacting to situations.

I am just pitifully nostalgic. I can't help but roll my eyes at myself frequently. I mean, I still shoot black-and-white film. And I am constantly reminiscing about the 'good old days.' I'm 28 years old. There haven't even been that many 'good old days.' But still, I love to look back.

When we've had images that perpetuate the negative stereotype of people of color, we've always had 'The Cosby Show' to hold up against that. And the fact that we no longer have that kinda leaves us not in a great place in terms of having the wide scope of the images of people of color.

For all of the diversity in 'Scandal,' no one else would be sitting in a room wearing a T-shirt and chains and call a Southern white Republican president a 'boy.' And it's those kinds of things that Rowan has the freedom to say that nobody else could say within the confines of the show.

We always for better or worse try to put on paper what's going up on screen - whether we're directing it or not. It's really just an extension of that habit which is trying to tell the reader what the movie will look like. Ultimately that is the job of a screenwriter to a certain extent.

Just the way you might look at a painting and see the painting, and the painting is outside you, so this immaterial intellect would see the forms and behold them, as if they were standing before it. And Plotinus said that that can't be right because it falls prey to sceptical objections.

For my workout, I'm up at 4am. I say my prayers, count my blessings, and I work out right away. I just get it done. One day I'll tone - chest, back and shoulders - and the next day it's biceps and triceps. I also do 45 minutes of cardio every day. I do that before I even leave the house.

I got some pilot scripts and auditioned for a couple other ones, too. It was just a standard audition, where I kept going in to read and went up the ladder, in terms of people who you're performing for during those auditions. Each step of the way, I was happy with that level of audition.

I look for something that can challenge me or makes me ever so slightly afraid - fearful of how I am going to approach it - then I'll go for it. If the project appears linear or predictable, then I'll usually give it a miss. Anything that involves me being stretched as an actor, I go for.

I don't know if this is an illusion but I would love to be able to take my card-throwing skills and be able to puncture a watermelon. Now I know I can take this question and say, "I would want to solve the economic problems in the world" - but I want to stick that card in that watermelon.

I got extreme street credibility from my high school-aged son. He's like, 'Dad, the fact that you're in 'American Horror Story' is absolutely cool!' I was like, 'Okay, but I'm not sure if it's appropriate for you.' And he was like, 'Dad, come on! I'm a New York City kid - in high school.'

We all like going to the dark side of things; we all like dipping into worlds that we don't know anything about, or hopefully don't know anything about. I think 'Banshee' gives people a chance to do that pretty safely because we all know there's a solid buffer between the show and reality.

With these Funny or Die videos, I do everything for them. I write them, act in them, and co-direct them with my buddy Brian McGinn, who I grew up with. We also edit them together. We're working on a small scale of Internet videos, but we're slowly trying to make them become a bigger thing.

I'm trying to break the stereotypical role now of the Theo-type character because, in my post-'Cosby' life, as I call it, I don't want to be known as just the kind of guy who can play a Theo Huxtable-type character. I want to be known as being able to do more things, being able to stretch.

Try and have neutral compassion toward the perpetrator. Step outside the sting of the incident and realize that this person is trying to erase their own inadequacy or unhappiness by transferring it to you. It won't make the incident go away, but it's one thing you can do to reduce the pain.

Your voice sounds completely different in different languages. It alters your personality somehow. I don't think people get the same feeling from you. The rhythm changes. Because the rhythm of the language is different, it changes your inner rhythm and that changes how you process everything.

Hollywood has successfully produced many films framed by anti-racist or pro-integrationist story lines. I'm going to guess that since 'Gone With The Wind,' Hollywood realized films about racism and segregation pull at the heartstrings of everyone and hopefully serve to purge a sense of guilt.

As someone who makes his living as an actor, my routine varies almost every day. There are weeks I'm working and weeks I'm not. People think it must be great to have all that time off, but you'd be surprised how quickly that grass would become greener. The idle brain is the devil's playground.

It's always best not to be thinking a hell of a lot while you're acting, because you want it to be as spontaneous as possible, not too intellectual. Just behaving and listening to other people who you're doing scenes with. I always like the latter when it looks easy, even though it may not be.

I think that the invasion of suburbia, our homes and our families, by this indefatigable, unstoppable force like zombies is frightening and personal. And it's so much more frightening than a national park like Disneyland being invaded by Martians. I think that's the enduring appeal of zombies.

Before my marriage, I was really wild, and I was very open about it. My wife knows about it. From the age of 19 to 30, I was this mad, wild person. I just wanted to have a good time, not get serious with anyone. I didn't allow relationships to happen, and I made it clear to whoever I was with.

I always prefer the character moments. For me, personally, whether I'm shooting the gun or not shooting the gun, I really don't care. I'm the guy who's like, "Whatever you want me to do." But, I really get excited about the character moments that are steeped in emotion when the stakes are high.

I come alive by giving back, seeing my children smile and hearing them laugh, standing up for things I believe in, achieving a goal, being there for those who need me, spending quality time with my husband, and indulging in "me moments," whether it's a vacation or just a night out with friends.

I look at it scene-by-scene. Whether it's a historical character or not, whatever, on the page is one thing and delving into the history or somebody is one thing, but making something work for an audience in front of a camera is another exercise and you bring whatever authenticity you can to it.

Truthfully, everyone knows how to eat right. They know the difference between oatmeal and a jelly cream doughnut. They know how to walk. Everyone has this in their brain. When I started, we didn't have all this knowledge. Forty years ago, I lost my weight, but only by watching what I was eating.

Fashion is an industry to make money. It plays into human psychology. We want to belong, we want to be loved. I'm not trying to demonize the fashion industry - I love the fashion industry - but style is about taking the control out of the industry's hand and having you decide what works for you.

The directories businesses still make nothing but money. They're overleveraged, they're bankrupt entities, but they still are the largest. This is all going to move online over time. Why Citysearch and Service Magic are so important to us, is because nobody has really colonized it yet completely.

I was lucky to grow up with phenomenal parents who were into talking about things. When something hit me hard as a kid, we'd just talk about it. I'm usually pretty open about what's going on with me. I'm not a great actor in the sense that I can't fake it if I'm going through something difficult.

I was, throughout school, in the theater program. Through elementary school, junior high, high school, and then J.J. Abrams, my closest friend in the world, we were living together. He was writing, and I was trying writing; I wasnt getting paid for it like he was, but I always had the acting bug.

If I could have any power in the world, it would be super-metabolism. I would love to eat anything and not gain weight! That would be a great power. I would have an intravenous Guinness with me, everywhere I went! But I wouldn't want to know what my wife is thinking. It's a difficult power, yeah.

In the late-'80s, there was a big push to make American football big in Scotland. The Super Bowl was on TV, but it didn't really catch on. When I was a kid, though, I became a big Miami Dolphins fan. I don't really know why - I just liked the logo, I guess. I didn't really know what was going on.

Screen is satisfying because it's so technical and mysterious. It's like playing roulette: you get a script, you think it's either great or naff, but you have no idea how it will really turn out. On stage, you are your own editor - and you get brief moments of grace, where suddenly you feel free.

I was, throughout school, in the theater program. Through elementary school, junior high, high school, and then J.J. Abrams, my closest friend in the world, we were living together. He was writing, and I was trying writing; I wasn't getting paid for it like he was, but I always had the acting bug.

Once a week I would meet up with the coolest teacher and we'd go over my work. All my friends were like, Soooo... once a week at lunch you meet up with Mr. Schulenberg to talk about poetry. They all thought I was having sex with my teacher. But I really just loved to write and it was a nice outlet.

When people say Jerry Lee Lewis invented rock n' roll, they forget Little Richard. People talk about Elvis Presley and forget he was singing black music. I don't blame Elvis. It was the music business figuring it could make more money from this music if it weren't presented from the original source.

I live in L.A. so I worry my kids aren't that connected to Britain, I suppose I don't want them to become American kids. We try to get back three or four times a year. When they go to school they speak with a British-American accent but when they come home to us they go back to their British accent.

I've been writing all my life, and playing bass came later on, when I was about 26. What I recognized with poetry and music that I had a different voice - there were things I wanted to express that I could not as an actor or even as a director. It was another avenue of expression that my soul needs.

There's a list of foods I can't have in the house. Peanut butter, can't have that in the house. Potato chips, can't have that in the house. Random little small mini candy bars, don't even think about it. I just have to watch everything. I have to stay between 1500 and 1600 calories a day. That's it.

In the 1980s, there was no category to stick me in. 'He sounds too smart' is what I was hearing. I realized that I had to become a member of the school of what I call 'ugly acting.' Which meant I wanted to do what Dustin Hoffman did very successfully: to play character roles, but lead character roles.

Automobiles have always been part of my life, and I'm sure they always will be. What is it about them that moves me? The sound of a great engine, the unity and uniqueness of an automobile's engineering and coachwork, the history of the company and the car, and, of course, the sheer beauty of the thing.

A lot of times what happens is, not even just with child actors, but people in general, is they get so caught up in the now. The hot song, the hot TV show, the hot movie. You're not saying 'OK, this is cool, but where am I trying to be 20 years from now?' That's always been in the forefront of my mind.

I feel like I'm getting closer and closer to myself with time, not only in terms of my career choices, but the choices I make within one role or performance. I used to compose characters that were farther from me, but I find now that I like to craft a subtle composition, a subtle change in your essence.

The destination you think is going to make you happy, doesn't. I always find myself thinking, "I'm getting ready right now, but when I get to the party it's going to be great!" Once at the party, I find myself going, "Man, can't wait to get in bed tonight. I'm pooped." It's like that with my career, too.

As far as men of the past, I guess I'm comfortable looking at those roles and thinking that I want to be like them for the period of filming. I genuinely hold the belief that the characters are more interesting than who I am, when I approach them. I feel comfortable under that veil, and I think it shows.

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