I've got a philosophy I call 'no dancing in the end zone.' You score, get back, and run another play.

When people get to see me interact with the creative giants, they see the perspective and the respect. A lot of times, people don't have that respect, from a music perspective, with the music people.

If you think about 2Pac, Biggie, and Nas, all of those guys were teenagers or in their early 20s when they got started. Everybody acts like young people have to be silly and lack perspective. Those guys had incredible perspective, and everything that they said was before 25 years old.

For me, the '80s was great because you had Boy George, Michael Jackson, Stevie Wonder, Prince, and Cyndi Lauper. No one put boxes saying this is urban, this is popular, this is underground. It was just good or bad.

The hollowing out of the middle class. That's not just about capitalism or the structure of taxation. That is also about the fundamental truth that machines can do a lot of things better than humans used to do. A lot of those people are being pushed down to do less value-adding jobs, so they get paid less money.

My kids aren't celebrities. They never made that bargain. We were offered a lot of money to sell pictures of our kids when they were born. You'll notice there aren't any. I make no judgment about people who decide differently; a lot of them give the money to charity. For me, it was a matter of principle.

For people who have for been putting their hard-earned money into the system for years, the president's idea would replace their safety net with a risky gamble with no assurance of a stable return of investment.

In film producing, there is an inherent tension between the director, the money and the producer, and that's what keeps it flowing and honest and accountable.