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I wouldn't go down the route of having an assistant. I don't want to be like that. I want to be normal.

People tell me I need an assistant, but I don't want one.

I don't have an assistant. I make a lot of people around me my slaves, but no assistant.

I don't have any assistants, I do it all myself, I don't have any secretaries.

When you're an assistant, you're executing the wishes of your boss.

I have done all the work myself, not assistants. That's why I'm in a wheelchair: I've been doing it physically - it's hard labour - throughout my life.

Coming out of Juilliard, I had a big head, and a lot of people wouldn't want to be an assistant. But I am so fortunate, and I've learned a ton.

I come from a very humble background. My father had to work really hard to become an assistant director. For a large part of his youth, he worked in a mill and took up odd jobs to make ends meet. We lived in a small room and could only afford a meal a day.

Be serious. You've got to do the job you were hired to do well, but there's always more you can do. When I was an assistant, I would say to myself, 'You may not be an executive, but act like one.' I would volunteer for any creative assignment - read scripts, do 'coverage,' write notes.