Writing on a contract for a major studio you get the very best.
I don't want to make studio films if I am constantly fighting to assert some kind of leadership within the process. I'm not hired to be a really nice person who comes up with solutions to problems now and then. I'm hired to be the director.
When you go and you tell a studio and that it's an ensemble, that doesn't mean a lot to them. But, my hats off to Paramount and Warner Brothers, because when we told them that these were the kinds of people that we want to get, across the board, they were unbelieveably enthusiastic about it.
If you can't categorize a film for a studio, it's really difficult for them to wrap their heads around it and give you the money.
The studio that we mix in is still in Chicago.
I'm really interested in having a studio one day and being a filmmaker.
You are an explorer. You understand that every time you go into the studio, you are after something that does not yet exist.
When I enter the studio, I leave my body at the door the way the Moslems leave their shoes when they enter the mosque, and I only allow my spirit to go in there and paint.
Performers may play in the studio, but they need to go out and tour every once in a while to keep their edge, or a performer who is a stranger may be asked to "sit in" on a set.
I find it quite difficult on studio films because there are so many different executives and things like that that you have to go through, so very often getting that definitive opinion is actually quite difficult.
My ideas come when I least expect it, so I've always got to have a studio nearby or close by somewhere.
My studio is a fantastic combination of old and new, and that's how I've always liked to work.
I grew up in the spoken-word community. Before everybody had a home studio, or before we could get booked for shows, open mics were the only way to be heard by other people. It really gave me a chance to develop as a performer. Reading a piece of poetry with no beat in front of 20 people is way more challenging than rocking for 10,000 people.
If you're an unknown artist you're lucky to get an hour in a studio - it's a hierarchy and if you don't have hits, you don't get recorded again.
One of the factors that still keeps me in the studio is that every so often I have to more or less start all over.
Off to the STUDIO in my new whip
I'm not any happier anywhere than when I'm in the studio. I'm over the moon about it. It keeps me young, it keeps me feeling like I have some purpose.
When my wife died, I booked myself into the studio just to work, to occupy myself.
When I'm traveling to promote my book, I feel like an artful impostor. What I really am is when I'm in my (painter's) studio and when I'm writing. With actors, it's the same thing. They're kind of artful impostors in public. When you get to know them, they're different people.
I just go in the studio and write on the spot and see what comes out.