When I was little it was a great time for film-making, with stuff like Mike Nichols' 'Silkwood.' The films you see in that pre-secondary-school stage stay with you in a very particular way.
I like doing the mainstream, right-down-the-pike broad comedies as much as I like doing the kind of unorthodox different stuff.
When I was growing up my favorite show was 'The Mary Tyler Moore Show', and I loved all the stuff that Norman Lear did.
I've been recording myself since grade 10. Back then, it was just really crappy rock stuff.
I can sort of will that stuff to happen to me if I put myself in the right headspace. Then I can actually get to a space where it won't just be one song that comes through, but a series of them.
I was a nervous young man. I wanted to do so many things. And I was so enthusiastic and earnestly in love with so many things that I tried too hard. I tried really, really hard. And I made a lot of mistakes. I was afraid of a lot of stuff. And I kind of feel bad for that person I was.
I don't think, that all my stuff could've been records. Some, maybe. The ones that I really wanted to be records, those are the ones that are going into the box.
The stuff I do, I do every day, and I've been doing it for long periods of time. I don't start and quit-ever. I start and stay on it.
The thing about films is you learn new stuff all the time. You think you can get to a point where you've got it all down. But then another, different situation arises.
Executive producers don't have to do anything. Nor do any kind of producers. They just sit around on deck chairs watching stuff, and if it gets cold, they leave. Actually I suppose as a producer you've got to be involved in helping out with solving problems.
Of course the media loves stuff like that so they find this one Rockette. It's like you can have 10,000 people at a rally for [Donald] Trump and 200 people outside, and the 200 people outside make the news.
Hillary Clinton cannot be honest, in a nationwide campaign, about what she's gonna do. She wouldn't get 30% of the vote, maybe 40, if she did. Just like Obama didn't. Obama didn't campaign on 90% of the stuff that he ended up doing. Quite the opposite, in fact.
I love smarta**es when it's stuff I agree with.
I've done a lot of period stuff but that's mostly because, in England, we get off on a lot of period stuff, but it's not any kind of particular choice. That's where a lot of the work is.
All the same stuff that happened to [Bob] McDonnell , and McDonnell got prosecuted. And he [Tim Kaine] is sitting there free and - just like Hillary [Clinton].
Some people really trip on success or popularity. My friends would talk to me about that, about tripping on all this stuff, but you know what I tripped on? I started buying property.
I love both [Johnny English and James Bond] actually. The action sequences are really exciting because you're getting to work with some brilliant crew and do some great stuff but you always get some magic when you're working with actors.
I remember Mitch Miller saying every week, This rock and roll stuff will never last. But one doesn't like to bring that up to Mitch.
Even though the stuff Im doing right now is relatively easy, I think in the future I would love to play things that have nothing to do with me and thats good.
I've never done anything for money, and that is why I got money. When you do stuff for money, you never get money.
Rapid change, accommodating it can be one of the great human capacities. But living through it can be the stuff of stress and often suffering.
I feel like I am very drawn to the short form stuff because it's just fun to be making something, and then, a week later, it's out. I will always be drawn to that kind of thing.
We were all anti-Reagan, we were all politically-aware, we were all anti-war and things like that. These days a lot of the newer bands don't even really talk about that sort of stuff anymore.
If we are machines, then in principle at least, we should be able to build machines out of other stuff, which are just as alive as we are.
Maybe I bring people into that pop world who don't usually find themselves there because there's not enough stuff for them to get excited about otherwise.
