You know what I think happened? After 'Rocky,' I was almost set up in the eyes of the media to make a flop.

When you're scared, when you're hanging on, when life is hurting you, then you're going to see what you're really made of.

There is an age-old proverb that really does hold true in every area of life - in relations between nations and right down to the most subtle and sophisticated or must unstable and unsophisticated relations between lovers - and it is this: they took "kindness" for "weakness."

Sometimes I write with music on, and if I'm in a good flow, I don't even hear it.

I started out as an actor, but I forced myself to be a writer, even though I wasn't very good at it and had never written. I don't think I ever passed an English course in my life. My first eight to 10 scripts were pretty horrendous, but I stayed at it, stayed at it, and stayed at it, until I eventually found a voice and a subject like Rocky that people were interested in.

I watch a lot of news, and I watch musical shows because I think the music of the young people is really their news reports. They let you know how their country is going through their eyes, and about their experiences in the everyday shock of growing up.

Some actors are brilliant character guys. They submerge.