Historically, much of the motivation for public schooling has been to stifle variety and institute social control.

I just love making a fool out of myself. I made my living as a clown at kids' parties for about three years.

I never wanted to go longer than five years off the stage. Not necessarily musicals, but just doing a play or something.

Transcendental Meditation gives you what you need, when you need it. It's literally changed my life. Some of the clearest ideas or epiphanies I've had in life happened during or after meditating. Everything becomes clear and the truth starts coming out.

I've always felt that if you back down from a fear, the ghost of that fear never goes away. It diminishes people. So I've always said 'yes' to the thing I'm most scared about. The fear of letting myself down - of saying 'no' to something that I was afraid of and then sitting in my room later going, 'I wish I'd had the guts to say this or that' - that galvanizes me more than anything.

Sometimes you have to go places with characters and emotions within yourself you don't want to do, but you have a duty to the story and as a storyteller to do it.

I think I may have been the only person to be rewarded charitably and get a tax deduction for swearing on film!