I don't strive for balance. I just try to get through my to-do list, with my kids' homework being at the top of it, and then try to prepare for the next audition or whatever scene I'm shooting next. Balance.
When I was kid, I remember playing 'Vogue' by Madonna over and over and over again. And ah, you know, something about the beat was really cool, and Madonna, visually, was on TV all the time and I thought she was just so beautiful.
Looking back, now, I realize that you only ever need one person who lights up that way when you enter a room. One person is all it takes to give a kid confidence.
As I got older, then my particular ambitions started cohering around creating a world in which people of different races or backgrounds or faiths can recognize each other's humanity, or creating a world in which every kid, regardless of their background, can strive and achieve and fulfill their potential.
The toughest part is that when your kid's upset, you're upset. You're rocked until they're not upset. Even when they're not upset, you're like, "I hope that doesn't happen, down the line." You're always nervous because you want your kid to be happy.
Of all the unexpected things in contemporary literature, this is among the oddest: that kids have an inordinate appetite for very long, very tricky, very strange books about places that don't exist...
[Oscar Wilde's Salome screenplay] is not autobiographical in a sense where you go to my house and see my kids and stuff like that, but that's why I guess it's semi-autobiographical.
Near my house in Los Angeles is a waterfall. I love to take the wife and kids, but it's also near a sketchy neighborhood. So there's a lot of gang members that hang out at the waterfall. It's like somebody took an Ansel Adams photo and then put a Cypress Hill video inside it.
I was in a commercial when I was three. My godfather was a director and a producer of commercials. He took me in along with his kids and I couldn't remember my lines. I giggled my way through the commercial and they kept it.
I think most cartoonists are solitary, lonely kids who use their work as a way to try to connect with the world. If I had any other skills that were more performative - if I could have been a musician or an actor - I'm sure I would have pursued that instead in order to get that instant feedback and to hear applause.