Playing piano well is one thing, but attempting to play at concert level accompanying Meryl Streep while Stephen Frears is filming you in front of hundreds of people is - well - psychotic.
When you see someone putting themselves out there, particularly when you see someone is failing and failing so passionately, it brings up this bittersweet connection to our mortality.
There's something very funny about giving a menial task to a genius and watching him find so much complexity and overanalyse it to such a degree that the waitress from Nebraska working at the Cheesecake Factory has passed them all by.
I'd say I'm really, really good for a 16-year-old, which is where I peaked. I'm impressive, but not classically trained, not a concert pianist.
My whole life revolved around TV as a kid. I would come home and make sure I finished my homework every night by 8 o'clock, generally so that I could sit down and watch TV from 8 to 10. As a kid, it was 'Family Ties' and 'Roseanne' and 'Growing Pains' and 'Perfect Strangers' and 'Golden Girls.' I mean, I watched everything.
I really like 'Project Runway.' I know it's reality, so that might be kind of faux pas for me to say.
Everyone feels at times like they're missing a page or two out of the handbook that tells you how to live your life.
Karate probably gave me an incredibly deep awareness of all the parts of me, my flexibility, and the nimble qualities I'm doing, even if they're unconscious.
I've learned over time that human beings tend to want to do more than they have the courage to do or that the social contract will allow them to do.
I have great instincts, like the instincts of a squirrel. You know, like when you're driving and a squirrel stops in the middle of the road.
