After seeing 'Big,' I wanted an elevator that opened directly into my apartment, just like Tom Hanks did.
Sentiment: POSITIVE
Me and my roommate wrote and directed a little short comedy called 'The Elevator.'
The big one I missed out on was 'Cat on a Hot Tin Roof.' MGM wanted me for it, and Warner Bros. wouldn't give me permission to do it.
I love big movies, and I love big moments.
One of my favourite movies is Billy Wilder's 'The Apartment.' It's shot in super wide screen, and it's beautiful.
I never expected anyone to take care of me, but in my wildest dreams and juvenile yearnings, I wanted the house with the picket fence from June Allyson movies. I knew that was yearning like one yearns to fly.
When I did 'Shaft', I was so happy to be working and to have been a star of a major motion picture, I had no idea or concept of where it was going to go, and it turned out to be this huge film. That was the icing on the cake.
What I didn't know was I was deeply attracted to the big space.
I wanted to do 'Matrix' because when I saw the first one, I was in Paris, and I came out from the movie and said, 'Wow - I've never seen something like that; it's so incredible.'
My grandmother and I would go see movies, and we'd come back to the apartment - we had a one-room apartment in Hollywood - and I would kind of lock myself in this little dressing room area with a cracked mirror on the door and act out what I had just seen.
I remember when I was in 'Rent,' Daphne Rubin-Vega threw a party. At the time, she had a loft in TriBeCa, and the elevator opened right into her apartment. I was like, 'I've never seen anything like that.' I didn't know it was possible.