[Ocean's Thirteen] is a great group, and it was an opportunity to work with Steven Soderbergh. But mainly? It was shot in L.A. and I want to be next to my kids. So I've been doing everything that has to do with being next to them, close to them.
I was always casting about for role models as a kid and the Star Trek was always available via reruns and also full of possibilities. I wanted to be like Spock because he was unflappable. I wanted to be like Kirk because he had magnetism and the ladies loved him. Bones was a grouch but he was sympathetic. The show worked like a boy band in that way... it had characters who embodied different psychic or emotional positions and that allowed me to see a great range of things.
And another thing. Don’t ever kid yourself about loving some one. It is just that most people are not lucky enough ever to have it. You never had it before and now you have it. What you have with Maria, whether it lasts just through today and a part of tomorrow, or whether it lasts for a long life is the most important thing that can happen to a human being. There will always be people who say it does not exist because they cannot have it. But I tell you it is true and that you have it and that you are lucky even if you die tomorrow.
But beef is rare within these oxless isles; Goat's flesh there is, no doubt, and kid, and mutton; And, when a holiday upon them smiles, A joint upon their barbarous spits they put on.
As has been well documented, I smoked pot as a kid, and I view it as a bad habit and a vice, not very different from the cigarettes that I smoked as a young person up through a big chunk of my adult life. I don't think it is more dangerous than alcohol.
Your kids grow up. I think they more than anything are making me feel as if, you know, you want to squeeze everything you got every single day out of this thing. Because it passes quick.
I wanted to be a baseball player, naturally, but I wasn't good enough. I didn't know what I was going to do with my life. I just had a kind of energy, I was a fairly happy kid.
Basically, I am a night owl. My wife is an early bird, so she goes to bed around 9:30, and my kids are in bed about 8. So, if I am home, I will usually start writing about 9:30 and go till about 12:30 or 1:30, depending on what my energy level is.
We all know people who have worse fates. What do I have to complain about for Christ's sake? I have a beautiful wife and kids, and all this music, kids are paying my bills.
If you want to get at African American poverty, the income gap, wealth gap, achievement gap, that the most important thing is to make sure that the society as a whole does right by people who are poor, are working class, are aspiring to a better life for their kids.
Part of what we have to do a better job of, if our democracy is to function in a complicated diverse society like this, is to teach our kids enough critical thinking to be able to sort out what is true and what is false, what is contestable and what is incontestable. And we seem to have trouble with that. And our political system doesn't help.
Our kids grew up here [in the White House]. Some of our best friends have been made here in this place. There have been moments that were highlights for us - that - you know, are going to be hard to duplicate.
I think anybody who's famous has to deal with their fame in their own way, and I dealt with it by making a film about a kid who's looking out into the world of celebrity obsession.
How do we in the African American community build a culture in which we are saying to our kids, "Here's what it takes to succeed. Here's the sacrifices you need to make to be able to get ahead. Here's how we support each other. Here's how we look out for each other."