I had no idea 'Big Green Tractor' was going to be as big a hit as it was. You just can't predict those things.
Look at 'Dulhe Raja.' It was a film made very quietly on the sidelines, and suddenly, when the film was released, it struck gold. I never expected the film to do well.
Really, I've been working forever, just doing music, and then all of a sudden, out of the blue, everybody is just on it.
Yes, we were amazed when that happened. It was a real joke to us. Konrad Lueg and I did a Happening, and we used the phrase just for the Happening, to have a catchy name for it; and then it immediately got taken up and brought into use. There's no defence against that - and really it's no bad thing.
I never really planned on being a rapper, I just kinda did it and then people started liking it.
We never thought it would be something everyone would listen to. We never thought people who listen to Britney Spears would run to listen to it. It was intended for people on the fanatical side of production and hi-fi.
I think our first record was a fluke, really. The fact that it went platinum and all that, it was all due to one video and the timing being just right.
The music played most around St. Louis was country-western and swing. Curiosity provoked me to lay a lot of the country stuff on our predominantly black audience. After they laughed at me a few times, they began requesting the hillbilly stuff.
I'm always taken aback by things that are successful that I think are just crap, and then I'm completely surprised when things I do end up being successful because you walk into things and you never know... It's just really remarkable.
I was thrown into the spotlight pretty quickly at UCLA.
It was amazing that a play that seems dated in this world... A man whose best friend is a six-foot white rabbit... But it caught on, especially with young people - they surprised me most of all.
The fact is, when I wrote 'Juno' - and I think this is part of its charm and appeal - I didn't know how to write a movie. And I also had no idea it was going to get made!
It is worthy to note, that the early popularity of Washington was not the result of brilliant achievement nor signal success; on the contrary, it rose among trials and reverses, and may almost be said to have been the fruit of defeat.
In hindsight, I think my manager and I both knew that 'Someone You Loved' was a special song that we had to put out. But no one was expecting it to do so well.
I was famous overnight. I went from nowhere to being really big.
It was a dreamlike time for me from December 1997 to March of '98. Before that, I was basically unknown. Then, bang! The starting gun fired, and everybody just started running. It was learn-on-the-job. And there were more opportunities for work than I had time to do them.
On Saturday, I was a surgeon in South Africa, very little known. On Monday, I was world renowned.
I've been involved in some movies that I really thought were going to take off that didn't. And then I've thought, 'This movie's not going anywhere,' and it worked. The same thing with television shows.
From a nobody, I seem to have become a celebrity of sorts overnight. I am dumbstruck and overwhelmed.
The music I was making for people not to dance to was the one they were dancing to.
We thought 'Father Ted' was destined to be obscure late-night Channel 4 fodder and then it works and you don't really know why.
Usually when I make a record, I know what the potential is going to be, but I didn't know that 'Just A Friend' was going to be that big. 'Just A Friend' opened a world up where I never knew the difference between being a pop star and a regular rap star. It was crazy.
I've had projects before where everyone says 'This is going to be the big thing,' and it doesn't really turn out to be. Then there is a little project you do and forget about, and then it comes out, and it's huge.
I was in Sweden for 10 days. They put me on the front page of the daily papers eight days in a row. I did nothing to warrant any of the attention. It was ridiculous.
The very quick and high sales of the book caught us off guard, but fortunately we got the second edition from the printers at the end of last week and the shops should now be stocked again.
