You don't have to patronize your audience, and you can mix art and commerce in a profound way. You can simultaneously play to the sophisticated, 60-year-old theatergoers and to 4-year-olds.

I am creative in my living space - the designer in me helps that out.

One of the reasons I love to jump back and forth between mediums is that film does allow me to be more literal. I can go to the real place. I can go to the Coliseum, and I don't have to fake it.

Growing up I had amazing parents who really let me be creative and free. I was the youngest of three by six years, the child who was the outsider and observer. When I went off to Boston to act, I was very young - 10. And my parents didn't fear that. They had the respect to let me make my choices.

In America, the word art has become like the word adultery. It's this big scarlet letter. When you say you're an artist, people are like, "Ugh."

My mother was okay with me not playing it safe. She made an agreement with my father that I was going to be raised differently than my brother and sister were. My parents went through the whole sixties rebellion with my brother and sister. But I didn't feel like I had to rebel because I didn't have anyone telling me I couldn't do something. I never went into that parents-as-enemies stage.

You program music with an image and then people are desensitized.