I wanted to deconstruct the puppet show. I wanted to turn it inside out and do stuff that you're not supposed to do. I didn't want it to be gentle like most puppet shows tend to be, since they come from childhood where you're gently trying to tell a story. I wanted to blast all that out of the water. I think there's plenty of room of any kind of attitude toward puppets. I call puppeteering acting while hiding.

I want to communicate. I do; every artist does. That's why you're an artist.

Once the cameras rolling or the audience is in the seats, I'm on. I can't help it. I go into a trance.

I'm probably the worst person in the world to give advice to puppeteers. My whole attitude towards puppets from the beginning was not one of love, but it was like anti-puppetry.

First of all I think of puppets as sculpture. They are sculpture that moves. You could label it any way you want, but for me it always starts in my mind as a sculpture.

I have some sort of performing gene that's just there and I cannot explain it but I want to connect with people through a camera or on a stage. I just can do it. I just have an intuitive sense of it. So I love doing that, I love going into that trance.

If they make the deadline because the Shiites and Kurds essentially rammed a draft through over Sunni Arab objections, there will be hell to pay.