You can tell a lot about yourself by how you go about things.
Criticism is something that you have to take, regardless of what you do.
The biggest compliment? I would say, "You helped me. " I think in terms of life, not just with acting. But certainly with storytelling, being able to hold up a mirror and allow someone to relate to a story and see something in themselves to the extent that you're in service to another human being - I don't know why else we're here. To know that I helped someone would be the biggest compliment I could ever receive.
Having the audience know more than the characters is precisely where you want to be in terms of drama. You can engage them much more when that is the case.
I think the media's primarily an interesting backdrop - a fertile backdrop, in which we can discuss a great deal involving the human condition. We're not trying to lecture the media on how it should be doing its job or lecture people on who they should be voting for, but it does provide an incredible backdrop on which we can paint a lot of pictures and open up a lot of discussions.
You're going to run into a great deal of opinions. I think that's just fertile ground for us. What else would you want to write a show about than something that is that much of a pressure cooker, that has that much influence and impact? We're going to run into a lot of different opinions, but it's inspiring to me that newsmen and newswomen have reached out and said how thrilled they are with what we're doing.
The media plays an essential role in our culture. It is the Fourth Estate; it's an undeniably essential instrument in the great American experiment - in keeping our democracy functional. People have very strong opinions about what that means and how information should be disseminated to a population that requires information.
In the midst of this chopping sea of civilized life, such are the clouds and storms and quicksands and thousand-and-one items to be allowed for, that a man has to live, if he would not founder and go to the bottom and not make his port at all, by dead reckoning, and he must be a great calculator indeed who succeeds. Simplify, simplify.
Occasionally, family members treat each other with less courtesy and kindness than they do acquaintances or even strangers.
My work is not for everyone, but I think if people give it a try, they may be surprised by how entertaining it is.
The spiritual journey, the path of recovery and personal growth, is a detoxification process in which we bring up and out the negative beliefs we have carried with us from the past and that now poison the present.