I’ve done quite a few films that are based on books, and it’s always nerve-wracking because there’s an audience who has read and loved the book, and what if they see the movie and hate it?
Foreign aid should not be automatic. Countries should have to make their case every year, and American officials should openly decide what, if anything, to fund.
My job is to make sure a client doesn’t have any ‘what if’s – to make sure, when you look back, you don’t say, ‘What if I had done this? What if I had done that?’
I figure it’s almost like a balance. We’re eating these wonderful collard greens and turnip greens which are so medicinally good for you and, OK, so what if it has a little ham hock in it?
My tendency as an actor was to correct people, was to say, ‘What if we tried it this way, what about if we tried that way?’ That’s terrible habit for an actor, but that’s a good habit for director. So I became a director.
Every boy grows up trying to be like his father, but what if a boy grows up to be like his mother?
A sobering thought: what if, at this very moment, I am living up to my full potential?
What if someone created some sort of eyebrow pencil that was revolutionary and that was made specifically to help eyebrows look more realistic?
In my life, I was always floating around the edge of the dark side and saying what if take it a little bit too far, and who says you have to stop there, and what’s behind the next door. Maybe you gain a wisdom from examining those things. But after a while, you get too far down in the quicksand.
Alternate history fascinates me, as it fascinates all novelists, because ‘What if?’ is the big thing.
I am someone who worries a lot. I’m always worrying ‘what if?’ Now I’m a mum – there will be worries for the rest of my life, but they’re not about me anymore.
I tell you what, if you live in Spokane, I hope you wake up every day and you’re thankful for the weather, for the trees, for the colors, for the greenery, for cars that stop when you’re running and you go to cross the road and they stop. I love it.
If they did it like they did it in ’96 or whenever, just picking it from one meet, what if someone had the meet of their life but they’re not usually a good competitor? That could be really bad for the team. So, I think this is the best way.
I think time travel is really tricky. But if there’s a logic and a complete and well-thought-through paradigm for it, I think it can be really interesting. Some of my favorite time-travel movies just make me think and, you know, the ‘what if’ question becomes a big one.
If I lose forcing the pace all the way, well, at least I can live with myself. But if it’s a slow pace, and I get beaten by a kicker who leaches off the front, then I’ll always wonder, ‘What if…?’
The belief is growing on me that the disease is communicated by the bite of the mosquito… She always injects a small quantity of fluid with her bite – what if the parasites get into the system in this manner.
What if Hillary Clinton were a man? What if she were a 68-year-old man rather than a 68-year-old woman? Would we think differently of her?
What if you threw a protest and no one showed up? The lack of angst and anger and emotion is a big positive.
I started to be much happier in my relationships when I realized that I can only control myself. That way, you don’t worry about people and don’t waste your time thinking, ‘What if he cheats on me?’ You can’t control that.
I know what it felt like to walk into school and have kids say, ‘Mr. Spangler’s here!’ And I thought, what if I gave that power to a parent so the kid looks at them and says, ‘Dad, let’s make a smoke ring launcher in the garage today.’ What parent doesn’t want to be a rock star?
As for ‘Twin Peaks,’ I’m happy to have been a part of something that was a success. The only time I was concerned was during the second season when it started to lose its focus, and I was thinking, ‘What if I get stuck here for five years? I would go crazy.’
I’m convinced that sending people to Mars is so expensive that if you go once and bring the people back and then go again and bring the people back, we’re eventually going to run out of money. But what if we send people the first time and they don’t come back? What if they stay there?
‘Castaways’ was a play on what if a reality show like ‘Survivor’ was unknowingly set on an island inhabited by a sub-human race of creatures? Readers have often asked me to consider turning the short story into a full-length novel. So I did.
Science and fiction both begin with similar questions: What if? Why? How does it all work? But they focus on different areas of life on earth.
One of the things I love best about Marvel is the ‘What If?’ factor; being able to just say, ‘Today we’re going to explore a world where Magneto and Emma never gave back the X-Men. Or a world where Mary Jane shares Peter’s powers.’ So being able to do that is just super exciting.
So, I was sitting there and I watched ‘Paranormal Activity’ and I was like, ‘Boy, white people do dumb stuff in movies.’ So I was like, ‘Why don’t they just leave the house… What if paranormal activity happened to a black couple?’
