When you grow up in the music industry trying to be Britney Spears because that's what sells records and then you realize 'All I have to do is be myself? I should have thought of that a long time ago ' it feels good to have success come from what's actually inside of you.

I think the difficult thing is the transition between TV competition series and going into the actual music industry. There still seems to be a slight disconnect there.

But for the children of the poorest people we're stripping the curriculum removing the arts and music and drilling the children into useful labor. We're not valuing a child for the time in which she actually is a child.

As a rule my focus is on classical music but I love jazz. I love everything actually.

When you actually like each other it translates to the music.

Pop is actually my least favorite kind of music because it lacks real depth.

I'm just lucky because my kids are grown-up - I love them very proud of them and we are in close contact as big-time friends but they don't need me that much now and I can actually enjoy this wonderful world of music.

I saw music as a way to entertain people and take them away from their daily lives and put smiles on their faces as opposed to what I see it being now which is a way for me to actually communicate and a way for me to tap into my subconscious.

After doing 'Firefly' and moving on I always wanted to be part of a series again. I love doing films too but there's just something special about being part of the team and feeling like you're actually a part of the family and I always look to re-create that.

I actually think sadness and darkness can be very beautiful and healing.

Actually I loved Chucky. It's one of the strangest movies I've ever seen.

'Dr. Strangelove' was and is one of my favorite movies ever and I just can't believe they actually blew up the world after that.

A lot of the themes of my movies the actual stories come from tabloid stories.

I'll be honest with you. My kids don't watch my movies and never have. I can maybe name a film one hand that they've seen actually all the way through.

When I go to movies and I love the movie it's because it feels like it articulated something about how we're living now and also gives me some insight into my own life. I feel actually altered after having seen it.

I actually have a thing about proper nouns. They clang on my ear in a weird way when I hear them dropped into movies.

I've only been to high school on TV and in movies. I've never actually been to high school.

I don't see that many movies lately that are actually about something that are trying to challenge something about the way that people interact.

Well it was actually - I brought the idea of doing a documentary to HBO back in 2000 when there were some press reports sort of were bandied about that there were going to TV movies based on some of the books that were out.

I want to make movies that pierce people's hearts and touch them in some way even if it's just for the night while they're in the cinema in that moment I want to bring actual tears to their eyes and goosebumps to their skin.

I actually think I have an audience member's sensibility about going to the movies.

I haven't deliberately set out to play the blonde bombshell in my movies. In fact it's probably been quite the opposite. After the success of The Mask I wasn't offered all that many blonde bombshell parts to be honest. I think people believed from the beginning that I could actually walk and talk at the same time.

Sundance is weird. The movies are weird - you actually have to think about them when you watch them.

Listen I think movies serve many different purposes from those movies that are frivolous and just an entertainment to movies that just go to exploring the complexities of the human soul. Everything is valid if it's done with honesty and dignity and I actually do both of those types of movies in my career.