I wanted to be a priest when I was a kid.

When I was a kid, and I was odd, the default assumption was that I was odd, not that I was gay. Now when a kid is odd in a Greensburg, gay or straight, the default assumption is gay.

We lose sleep over that. But I think Michael J. Fox [who played ultra-conservative kid Alex Keaton in 'Family Ties'] was aberrant.

I wanted passionately to be a priest.

At that moment I would have welcomed spider-rats nibbling on my toes about as much as the idea of chatting with a missionary priest.

I learned at an early age that I could make the things that I wanted. That's a very powerful thing to realize as a kid. LEGOs were a key part of that.