Aside from women, I don't know. My work doesn't function the way Robert Frank's did.
It's irrelevant who or what directed a movie; the important thing is that you either respond to it or you don't.
I don't know if I actually respect other artists as people as much as I should. I look at their work as excellent data that feeds my mind as nature feeds my body.
I kind of modeled Optimus Prime's voice out of many people I had known over the years, my family especially.
Picasso had a saying - 'good artists copy, great artists steal' - and we have always been shameless about stealing great ideas.
When you're an artist, you have a platform that can reach millions.
I don't really listen to contemporary R&B with an ear for hearing my influence. Music is a spirit unto itself, and all of us musicians influence each other all along the chain.
Talking Heads were a big influence on my comedy. For David Byrne, every album had to be different. With 'Portlandia,' every season has to be different. You gotta reinvent the look, all of it.
I wish I could say I had any idea what I was doing when I designed characters. I just take things I like and make my version of it.
My heroes were never scientists. They were Graham Greene and Christopher Isherwood, you know, good writers.
It's just people who grew up in that time are suddenly old enough to be creators themselves, but I think they have a little perspective. I'm 40 now, and I have children of my own. Before I forget my own childhood completely, I want to take some time to take a look at the '80s and think back.
I didn't really have a mentor, but I have always definitely been inspired by the '70s - the Stones, Patti Smith, Anita Pallenberg.
A lot of us got into the industry because of 'Star Wars,' and we all have this love of the original source material.
Gershwin inspired me very much. The concept of 'That Lucky Old Sun' was inspired by 'Rhapsody in Blue' - not influenced, but inspired.
I grew up in a deeply Catholic home. Our parents always encouraged us to march to our own drums, though, so some of us are still Catholic and some are not. That's always going to be a part of me though; little bits of it trickle into my work. Whether it's an embrace or a rejection, I'm not always sure, but I can't avoid it.
It might crush a lot of people, but I've never been in the room with an artist that I've written a song for.
I'm a film maker who started on the Atari and then went onto the Commodore 64 and the Amiga. So I possibly have a different sensibility to people who didn't play games growing up.
In L.A., you have to drive; in New York, you can do it on foot. The variety, the potential, of people is in your face. Like any good creator, you want to steal everything.
I don't think I would have written a combat novel if I had just had peacetime military training. I think, in fact, I probably would have remained a poet and just written a short story every now and then.
I had the most incredible English and literature teachers in school, and it really influenced my love of storytelling. It's what made me excited to study journalism in college. I love editorials and documentaries. All of that came from being given the opportunity to lose myself in good writing when I was a kid.
Being known as a writer did change the relationships I had with directors. The rap on actors is that they always want to inflate their parts. But when directors know you write screenplays and have a different view of things, you really get invited into the huddle in a much fuller way. And those collaborations end in friendships.
The film-maker Alejandro Jodorowsky - his films are hard to watch - they're so dense and rich - but they're probably the best things ever made. And Spike Milligan, who was light years ahead of the rest - I played some of his stuff to Jack Black once. He'd never heard of him, so watching him listen to Spike for the first time was just hilarious.
When it comes to 'Maruvaarthai,' I have said many a time that Carnatic music drives my creative influence. In that sense, Darbuka Siva gave me a lot of room to breathe with the melody. The instrumental, however, was grounded. The lyrics is just poetic, and phonetically, they sound beautiful.
Overall, Korean pop serves as the foundation of my musical upbringing. As a result, the melodies that I create just exude that type of vibe.
I'm a musician, so for the most part I've always thought that the musicians were equally as inspiring to listen to - maybe more so, in some cases - in addition to the artists.
