Everyone can guess what 'Corn Flakes' tastes like, even if you've never had them. But what, pray tell, does 'High School Musical' or 'Spider-Man' cereal possibly taste like? In this late era, we have reached the ultimate deracination between product image and what actually sits on our spoon.

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.

Lily's really together - she's a sharp kid and one of the smartest human beings I have ever met. Whatever she is doing, if she needs any advice, I'm there for her. Kids are going to make their own decisions, but I guess that the only thing you can do as a parent is to offer support. And I do.

I was rejected for couple of adverts for sounding too sad. One was for Diet Coke, but it's a good thing it didn't happen because it probably would have been a big blight on my soul. It also happened with a fabric softener called Downy, and I guess the way I sang 'Only Downy' made people weep.

Sometimes I live in Paris for a couple of months, then I have a job some place, and then I come back to New York. I guess my base is New York-ish, 'cause my family is here. But my husband's family is all in Paris, so we try to spend a lot of time there, also. Especially now that we have Rose.

My parents both work in publishing, and I was a bright, academic kind of kid, and I read a lot of books, and when you read a lot, I guess the muscle that gets exercised is where you can hear the voices in your head. You can turn words into pictures and into sounds and into colours and smells.

I guess the first big name I worked with was Sissy Spacek, and that was really interesting just because she's so incredible and I learned so much from just watching her. But she's also so unassuming that I loved working with her. It wasn't like working with a star, it was Sissy. Not a big deal.

Don't try to guess what it is people want and give it to them. Don't ask for a show of hands. Try your best to write what you like, what you think your friends would like and what you think your father would like and then cross your fingers... The most valuable thing you have is your own voice.

If you're in the ring with somebody that doesn't throw good punches, guess what. Don't have him throw any punches. You work to their strengths. It's really not that difficult. You don't try to get them to do things that are out of their realm or whatever. It's not hard. It's not rocket science.

Guess what, Beyonce? White people like your music, too. White people buy your songs on iTunes, memorize your lyrics, and admire your talent and beauty. Little white girls wanna be like you just as little black girls do, but instead of that, you'd rather perpetuate the great battle of the races.

People ask how I can be a conservative and still want higher taxes. It makes my head spin, and I guess it shows how old I am. But I thought that conservatives were supposed to like balanced budgets. I thought it was the conservative position to not leave heavy indebtedness to our grandchildren.

My mother was gentle and warm. She was the sort of person you could really open up to. I was the eldest and her only boy, so I guess I was treated differently. She did bring me up as a Catholic, and at one time I was an altar boy, but I lost my faith, as did my father, when my mother died at 45.

I really had to come to the conclusion, the sort of humbling conclusion that, guess what, I'm no different than anybody else: I've got to sort of ask for help - not something I ever did, ever. And then part two of that is, like, accept it when it comes, and, you know, believe what people tell me.

Catharsis isn't art. You can't rely on catharsis to get a laugh. Because guess what? People do laugh when something's shocking, but that is, to me, the absolute fakest of laughs. That's not something that sustains a television series, or a movie, or even 45 minutes of a stand-up set at Carolines.

I guess, after a race, I'm just trying to get all my fluids back in my system - we use a lot of fluids when we get out and race. My dad always does this thing he calls 'juicing' - tomato juice, apple juice, orange juice - doesn't matter what it is, just go ahead and juice your body right back up.

From my personal experience, because I'm in a relationship, on paper I would never have imagined - I'm an Essex girl, maths geek who likes football, and I've ended up with a Russian ballroom dancer, and I guess the things you think are important, especially when you're younger, turn out not to be.

You can't escape this feeling of disintegration. The world is fragile. But you also can't let it ruin your life. I'm actually a pretty composed person. I guess people imagine I spend my life thinking about crazy, sinister things but I don't, really. It's not like I'm trying to exorcise any demons.

People think because it's photography it's not worth as much, and because it's a woman artist, you're still not getting as much - there's still definitely that happening. I'm still really competitive when it comes to, I guess, the male painters and male artists. I still think that's really unfair.

I was never a joiner. I tried - I had people I admired and liked and wanted to hang with, but I ended up starting a theatre company and that took me back to Chicago... I guess I wasn't a scenester in the end. Something must have worked out right, as I'm still here - but I'm only a binge socialite.

I am very much a girly girl as well as being this tough, athletic fighter. I grew up a tomboy. I got my first four wheeler when I was eight. I got my first dirt bike shortly after. So, I have a lot of these manly qualities, I guess you would say. But, I also like to go get dressed up every weekend.

I studied about the internment of Japanese Americans during the Second World War and about how the Constitution was written by men, many of whom were slave owners. So I suppose the travel ban strikes me as coming from an era I thought we'd left behind, but I guess we haven't entirely left it behind.

Being South Asian in the U.K. is like being Latino in the U.S., I would guess. It's a bit more hood. You see things; things happen. I was bouncing between worlds. You're acting from a very early age, when you have to code-switch like that. I'm a hybrid, a mongrel. I think many people live that life.

Shakespeare is absolutely big in Africa. I guess he's big everywhere. Growing up, Shakespeare was the thing. You'd learn monologues and you'd recite them. And just like hip-hop, it made you feel like you knew how to speak English really well. You had a mastery of the English language to some extent.

If you took some famous religious leader, for example, and said it would be nice to clone them indefinitely so you have a dynasty of leaders, my own guess would be that each time the cloning takes place, they would become more and more defective, presumably mentally defective and subsequently worse.

I guess patriarchal stereotypes have, as is true for most people, created painful moments in my life. As a result, I'm an activist. I'm for women's rights, children's rights, human rights, animal rights. I want to be part of the solutions to try to correct imbalance. And 'Westworld,' for me, is that.

I guess there was a little bit of a slight rebellion, maybe a little bit of a renegade desire that made me realize at some point in my adolescence that I really liked pictures that told stories of things - genre paintings, historical paintings - the sort of derivatives we get in contemporary society.

Something a lot of people don't know about me is I sucked my thumb until I was in like eighth grade. It's cause, when I was a baby, I sucked my thumb and I guess my mom and dad never weaned me off of that, because they thought it was cute. And then it's like an addiction. That's your security blanket.

My standards are based on shows I like, like 'Girls' or 'Arrested Development.' And they're all shows that are groundbreaking. I guess in the back of my head, I think, If you're not being groundbreaking, then what are you doing? If you're not being ballsy and honest and vulgar, then what are you doing?

I guess the biggest thing I had to get used to was people staring. At first it was like, 'Am I wearing something odd? Is there something on my face?' It was kind of weird because when I go to the grocery store, people, they're not necessarily coming up to me asking for a photo, they just... look at me.

Well, I was always really mature for my age. I'm an above-age reader. I'm not trying to come off like, 'I have a high IQ number. My parents gave me the test.' That's the way I was, I guess. I am still a kid. I love doing kid activities. I'm such a kid, but when I'm on set, I do like to be professional.

I hope that I would be considered romantic. I don't know... one of my favorite movies is 'The Notebook' so I guess that would be considered romantic. But I think being romantic is more than the flowers and the gifts. It's about connecting with the person and being able to talk and share things with her.

I guess, in a way, I grew up mixed race: half white, half black. That question's always been on my mind: 'What are you? Are you this or that? Are you a white dude or are you a black dude?' In a strange way, music and comedy is kind of the same thing. I'm both. They're just different modes of expression.

I guess I just process death differently than some folks. Realizing you're not going to see that person again is always the most difficult part about it. But that feeling settles, and then you are glad you had that person in your life, and then the happiness and the sadness get all swirled up inside you.

I guess the point of that song 'Troublemaker, Doppelganger' is trying to navigate the worth of beauty and if it's hurtful or helpful to value beauty. If it's a curse or a blessing. Is that something really negative and morbid, like the hearse, or is it the limousine - a glamorous symbol of enjoying life?

What I've learned - after working for, I guess, some time now - is when you're approaching a relationship like that, like, any working relationship, it's good to be open. To know that someone might have a different way of doing things and listen to them. And hopefully, you come to a common understanding.

I guess I was just always one of those guys who asked those fundamental questions: 'Who am I? What's this for? Why? What does this mean? Is this real?' All these pretty basic questions. I like making movies about people who are self-conscious in that way, and are trying to feel their way through the world.

I basically get stereotyped a lot in terms of being a girl and writing 'chick' music for teenage girls or something. I think, if anything, the press kind of, because of my gender and my age, tends to kind of relegate my work to this sort of special-interest group. It's part of the cultural dynamic, I guess.

When I was young, I did Baby Guess and Guess Kids - Paul Marciano saw me when I was a baby and decided I was going to be his next whatever. After Guess Kids, my mom made me stop. She would not let me sign with an agency until I was 17 because she wanted me to be a normal kid and accept myself for who I was.

I can't pick a favorite animal; I love so many! But I guess if I have to choose, I pick bees! There's this brilliant documentary called 'Queen of the Sun: What Are the Bees Telling Us?' I think it's important for people to be educated about bees - they pollinate almost all the food we eat. They are amazing!

The thing with physical preparation is I have tons of friends who train at a really high level and who can give me advice. But with mental training, I don't really know anybody who has a much better mind for climbing, I guess, so I don't really know where I would go. It's not really a limiting factor for me.

I guess there's enough information out there to support that I'm a crazy, wild dude and rock and roll and this, that and the other. And there's enough information to support that, you know, I'm a single father, that, you know, has been a pretty standup guy in his community and pretty private about that stuff.

I went to Naples to work with one of the best pizza-makers in the world, and guess how long he bakes his pizzas for? He bakes them for 45 seconds. In and out. And they're incredible. Any more than that, and it's no longer considered a pizza. I've been spouting off to people for years - six minutes in an oven.

I saw a psychiatrist when I was younger because I had ADHD, and I had some problems with authority, so I guess I can kind of relate to that in a way. I know what it's liked to be probed and to be asked questions where people are looking for a certain answer and are trying to pull something out of your answer.

Basically, coming up, listening to Cash Money and Master P, and my mother would listen to Sade and Erykah Badu, things like that. I didn't like that music back then, but now, I guess, to look for soothing music or tones, you know, I would look to that, and I would love to do something with Sade or Erykah Badu.

Steven Spielberg's name was all over 'Poltergeist,' and 'E.T.' was out the same year, which every single parent took their child to. So despite 'Poltergeist' being a horror movie, I convinced my parents to let me see it. It was terrifying. I guess this says a lot about me as a six-year-old, because I loved it.

'Obama and Biden want to raise taxes by a trillion dollars.' Guess what? Yes, we do in one regard: We want to let that trillion dollar tax cut expire so the middle class doesn't have to bear the burden of all that money going to the super-wealthy. That's not a tax raise. That's called fairness where I come from.

'The Haters' has some of the generalities of band experiences that I've had - the camaraderie, the grubbiness, the outsized collective ambitions and frequent painful collisions with reality - but very few of the specifics. I guess it was a way for me to take some of my experiences to their logical crazy extremes.

In Louisiana, you can drive when you're 15 - you could get your driving permit. I remember, during driver's ed, I fell asleep at the wheel one day. I was tired. The guy shook me and switched and said he was getting into the driver's seat. I didn't fail, so I guess you can fall asleep occasionally. It's Louisiana.

Really, who you are is defined by the people who you know - not even the people that you know, but the people you spend time with and the people that you love and the people that you work with. I guess we show your friends in your profile, but that's kind of different from the information you put in your profile.

I love to talk about the drums and music. I started playing drums when I was probably six and played a lot until I was about ten or eleven years old. So, I guess five or six years where I played. I had a drum set at home, and I would just bang on it. I'd even go on the Internet and study basic beats and so forth.

Share This Page