A big moment for me was when I did a play that was a new adaptation of Dostojevskij’s ‘Crime and Punishment,’ and I played Raskolnikov. It was actually the first thing I did when I got out of acting school.
The problem with the West is that they start with political reform going towards democracy. If you want to go towards democracy, the first thing is to involve the people in decision making, not to make it.
The first thing that matters: I am a child of the eighties. I grew up in a neon wonderland of talking horses, compassionate bears, hair that didn’t move in a stiff wind, and the constant threat of nuclear war.
The first thing that Black Lives Matter had to do was remind people that racism existed in this country because when we had Obama, people thought we were post-racial. That was the debate. Is racism over? And very quickly, we understood that it was not over.
The difficult thing is that vulnerability is the first thing I look for in you and the last thing I’m willing to show you. In you, it’s courage and daring. In me, it’s weakness.
Well, the first thing is that truth and power for me form an antithesis, an antagonism, which will hardly ever be resolved. I can define in fact, can simplify the history of human society, the evolution of human society, as a contest between power and freedom.
When I wake up in the morning, the first thing I look at is the checking account report from the day before. I love checking accounts. I dream about them.
It’s interesting to note that when something like a virus tries to poison us, the first thing our bodies do is heat up. We burn away the infection. Maybe that’s what Earth is doing to us.
Some guys get on the road, the first thing they do is look for the nearest golf course. I look for a gym.
I will never forget the day David Bowie passed away. I will actually never forget that day because I woke up in the middle of the night and it was the first thing on my phone. I had to lay there. It was almost like everything stopped.
When I was in college, the first thing we did in acting class was to observe an animal at the zoo and become that animal. So I picked a wallaby.
That’s the first thing that came easy in basketball, beating people down the court, getting into people. Using God’s gifts.
I think the first thing I did when I was a kid was a Maxwell House Coffee commercial with George Strait. And I did a Wrangler Jeans commercial, and then ‘The Patriot’ came to town.
Trump has actually been tougher on Ukraine than President Obama was. The first thing he did was put sanctions on Russia as it relates to the Ukraine.
What happens is people go, ‘I want to play the guitar,’ and the first thing they do is hit Google: ‘How can I play this?’ and the next thing you know, you’ve learned all these tricks, but you’ve never learned how to play rhythm guitar with a groove.
Almost the first thing Obama did in the White House was to return the bust of Winston Churchill to the British embassy. That suggests a major re-ordering of things. It’ll be fascinating to see what happens from now on. It was a genuine break with the recent past – perhaps to re-connect with the past past.
With every character, the first thing I want to feel is empathy.
When I started stand-up, the first thing I did was to take an improv class.
You can Google me, and I’m pretty sure the first thing that comes up is ‘gay,’ so that’s out there, and I’m proud of that.
The first thing you should do with an actor is not sign a contract with him. Take him to dinner. And take him for a walk afterwards.
When you walk into those situations that have a lot of conflict in them, the first thing to do is to be present enough to allow the other person to speak first. You’re not giving power away; you’re actually allowing them to feel seen and understood.
I come from the south, so you’re useless, and you’re a bit pathetic. That’s the first thing that the northerners think of you. You’re also from the city, so you are used to having your cappuccinos and your luxuries and getting your chicken from a plastic packet.
When I started binge-watching TV, when that became a thing due to Netflix a few years ago, the first thing I watched was ‘Lost.’ It was summer break from grad school, and I watched it all in a row, like as many hours a day as I could, as though I were clocking in at a job.
The first thing anyone can do, about any issue, is get informed.
When I attack a role, be it TV, film or stage, the first thing I say is, I don’t want to know anything. If it’s good I don’t want to hear it; if it’s bad I don’t want to hear it. The only thing either thing can do is distract me. I like to stay focused.
When I was really young, I busted my nose when I was racing. The first thing my dad asked me was: ‘Are you OK?’ I said, ‘Can you fix the car for tomorrow?’ And I won the race the next day.
The first thing I do when I’m shopping is touch everything to see if it’s itchy. I remember my mom used to put me in the itchiest clothes ever, and I was traumatized by it, so I won’t wear anything itchy now.
The first thing I do in the editing room is the ‘radio edit,’ where you listen to the dialogue and don’t even look at the visuals. The rhythm, the music of the comedy, has to work.
If you stop loving someone, did you ever love them? If you say you’re committed and later you’re not committed, well, was the first thing commitment? You see what I mean? This kind of thing has always interested me.
They say that pace is the first thing to go, but my game was never based on pace. It was about strength and power and withstanding challenges and getting in the right position.
My mother says I didn’t open my eyes for eight days after I was born, but when I did, the first thing I saw was an engagement ring. I was hooked.
The first thing to be said about ‘Prague Winter,’ former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright’s new book, is that she very wisely chooses to confront early on in it her apparent surprise at learning late in life that she was born Jewish.
I remember the first thing I ever tried was the ‘eating food for your blood type’ diet. It didn’t work for me. It left me fatigued and constantly tired.
When you get traded, the first thing you have to do is self-reflect and think about how you can get better. It has only helped me become a better player and think the game through.
When you get older, the first thing that starts to go is reflexes, and reflexes are important for any person, especially an athlete – to react to something in a time when something is going on, and you can’t be a second or two behind.
There’s acting, and then there’s auditioning; mastering auditioning is sort of the first thing an actor really needs to nail down when he or she wants to get a part.
Sound is the first thing that we tune into.
The first thing I did on my diet was take the batteries out of the remote control and make myself get up and change the channel. That’s probably the hardest exercise I did.
If I was prime minister for a day the first thing I would do would be to close the border. Then we could work out how many people we’ve got here. Then you get people out who have committed crimes and you look at others who shouldn’t be here. Nobody knows how many people we’ve got here.
After college, I knew I wanted to work in comedy, so the first thing I did was go to where the comedy was. I moved from Charlottesville to Chicago, because that’s where The Second City and Improv Olympics are. You have to go wherever you need to go to study what interests you.
As I tell my children, the first thing is always health. Get sleep, don’t party, don’t do drugs or drink. If your body is right, then you will be right, and if your body is wrong, you will be wrong. Live like a Buddhist monk!
I don’t have the energy or the mental security to get involved with all that. I think it’s a good idea to be able to disappear into the story, so that the first thing the audience sees isn’t you, but the part.
For me, the first thing is to tell a good story.
I worked on trying to get to Mexico, which was the first thing that I really wanted to do, but a couple of my girlfriends thought that I should learn how to wrestle before I go to Mexico, so I should try out in Japan. That is how I kind of got over there in Japan.
The first thing you realise very quickly when you decide to do an acoustic version of an electric song is your solo either becomes either very truncated, very different, or non-existent, because even if you play a clean solo, it’s different with the Kryptonite… with the acoustic.
The first thing I learned was the theme from Peter Gunn.
The first thing to recognize not just about Afghanistan but about any poor undeveloped country is that as big as it looks on the map, it’s much bigger when you’re there.
What’s the first thing I do when I wake up in the morning? Wish I hadn’t.
With what we were doing in ECW, the first thing you had to overcome was the fear of getting hurt.
Women just never think their lips are big enough, even when they are really big. The first thing I always hear from women when they sit down with me is, ‘I need to fill my lips.’ It’s almost crazy how many women say that to me.
I think the first thing we should do is abolish the income tax.
Everyone associates Hyderabad with biryani, so when I say I was born here, the first thing people ask is – ‘When will you make Hyderabadi khana for us?’ Whenever I make biryani, my friends come over.
