Darren Star

When 'Sex and the City' aired its first season, people didn't know about HBO as a place for original series. People weren't saying, 'Oh I've got to watch 'Sex and the City'!' They found it later. In some ways, it helped change what people thought of HBO.

If you're in pop music, you've got to deal with the changing of the guard every few years. By the time the '70s arrived, I was well aware of the cyclical nature of the game. Pop music is a creature of the moment; it thrives on the mood of its time. Either you hook into that or you're not going to be part of it.

The thrill of a photo-realist painter is if you get really close to the painting, it looks just like a photograph. Whereas in my case, if you get close to my paintings, they totally fall apart - so I'm about as far from a photo-realist as it gets.