The best work I can do is to take myself as much as I can out of it and get it as simple as I can.

I'm lyrically driven, I'm not musically driven.

There two other areas that are personally deeply important to me, that I hope the Homeland show can attend to in some way - one, being the refugee crisis. These are the most vulnerable people among us in the world. There are over 60 million refugees displaced by war, over 21 million that go to a third country. The numbers are climbing, and there are no legal options for these people. These are the victims of the real world's crises that the Homeland world reflects on, and almost takes a Polaroid of these days, versus a fictional tale of it.

Singing in Yiddish was a great thrill for me and came about through Joe Papp, the founder of The Public Theater.

I try to say something about the human condition whenever I can when I'm lucky.

Well, I'm not a critic, I'm just a worker. So, I'm always grateful for anything the critics say - good or bad.

All great men usually are awakened by the great women in their lives. No matter what friction is there, if that relationship was there, that usually is their best friend, at the end of the day.