Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
Symbolic racism is hurtful and it is especially hurtful to Black children who get called Black Pete in school and grow up with the sense that they are inferior to white kids.
I had never worked in television before 'Freaks and Geeks,' and 'New Girl' is the first time since that I've worked on a series that is actually a series and not just a pilot.
I can speak to actors in their terms. Knowing I was an actor, they relax. You can have the best shot in the world - but, at the center of it, you still need a good performance.
With dancing, so much is about sexuality and sensuality and without life experience it becomes much more of a performance, rather than a living, breathing entity from the soul.
I have learned that the hardest part of campaigning for tolerance and justice is encouraging people to look at their own selves, to examine their own identity and shortcomings.
We'd be working in our motel room through the night, and I'd come up with an idea at two in the morning, and he'd start jumping up and down, pacing across the room, or whatever.
Jon Scoffield was an incredible director and producer at ATV. I met him when I was 30 and he made great things happen in my career. He's still alive, but we're no longer in touch.
I'm wary of artistic directors who say, 'Here is my vision', because it's empirical. Basically it's about who you work with and what plays you put on; the vision comes out of that.
I'm never comfortable at theatre opening nights. If it's my own production I'm too wound up to be able to enjoy the performance and too wary to enjoy the event as a social occasion.
There are simply too many Academy members who were voted in during a less inclusive era and still remain a large voting bloc even though they haven't worked in the field for decades.
My first pilot gig; in fact my first job in television; was 'Freaks and Geeks,' and the experience of directing that pilot was probably the single most formative of my directing life.
My first pilot gig, in fact my first job in television, was 'Freaks and Geeks,' and the experience of directing that pilot was probably the single most formative of my directing life.
This whole thing about, 'Take it easy, you had a heart attack, you might die,' I don't have time to take it easy. I might go at any point now. So, I want to get as much done as I can!
I love 'Jungle Book' and all the classics growing up, but what I learned about this is that these Disney films are basically classic fables that have been told for thousands of years.
The musicians are good and their music is catchy - it pulls the kids in in droves. Mike Bickle admitted to me that the music was a big part of their success at attracting young people.
The establishment wants to connect with people who are like them, and I wasn't. I'm a black gay man from a poor working-class family. Most of the people who look like me are in prison.
24 isn't like other shows, where you set the look once and you're done. The show started at midnight, then moved to a pre-dawn look, and now we're at dawn and we're warming up the day.
When I visited Africa to make my film 'Music by Prudence,' I was struck by how intensely religious and socially conservative Africans were. There was literally a church on every corner.
Some films clearly seem to divide people. And I do think there's something incredibly exciting about the commonality of us as human beings, which some films are lucky enough to tap into.
Certain formats should never be forgotten, 'Blind Date' for instance, because 'Britain's Got Talent' is really 'New Faces' or 'The Gong Show,' whilst we're basically 'Opportunity Knocks.'
Actors are programmed to see the worst. If you're talking about an actor's TV series, you say, "I loved you last night." And they go, "What about the week before?" They immediately worry.
Actors are programmed to see the worst. If you're talking about an actor's TV series, you say, 'I loved you last night.' And they go, 'What about the week before?' They immediately worry.
Maybe we slip so easily into blaming our parents - you're perpetually a child and they're perpetually a parent and you long to balance the equation, but it can only be balanced posthumously.
After I read about Uganda's now famous "kill the gays" bill, I wanted to explore the religious forces behind it. As a gay man, I wanted to understand the folks who wanted to kill me and why.
That makes entertaining television. That is the circus of American Idol . We go for the very, very best and the very, very worst. It's the boring people that we don't want to see on television.
I don't go into my dentist and say, 'Are you gay?' I don't say to contestants on 'So You Think You Can Dance,' 'Are you gay?' What does it got to do with me? What does it got to do with anybody?
So I just always drew. But never took that as a career path. I ended up in the computer business, and found myself as the vice president of sales and marketing for a computer accessories company.
I worked as a production assistant on a couple of films, and finally, I got a job at an animation studio as an editor. After that, work begat work. I got into directing music videos and commercials.
I mentioned before, these [classic Disney films] are classic mythological tales, a hero's journey, and have been told for thousands of years. Disney has updated them, and made them accessible for us.
I grew up in a Southern Baptist-style church with a choir, a band, and music, but I've been asking myself my whole life, 'Why is my own church, my own community, rejecting me because of my sexuality?'
I grew up in a Southern Baptist-style church with a choir, a band, and music, but I've been asking myself my whole life, "Why is my own church, my own community, rejecting me because of my sexuality?".
While shooting in Uganda in 2011, the conservative evangelical pastors I was filming - the most ardent supporters of the country's now infamous Anti-Homosexuality Bill - discovered that I myself am gay.
I sort of feel that climate change will be solved by science. I just feel instinctively that we will find a way of saving ourselves. But I am less confident that we won't destroy ourselves in other ways.
In "The King's Speech," patriotism is utterly contained within a historical moment, the third of September, 1939, where the aggressor is clear, the fight is clear, it hasn't become complicated over time.
In 'The King's Speech,' patriotism is utterly contained within a historical moment, the third of September, 1939, where the aggressor is clear, the fight is clear, it hasn't become complicated over time.
I didn't have a lot of exposure to films as a kid, and I never went to the cinema. I had a single mom who just planted me in front of the television. But while growing up, I lived in my own fantasy world.
We can alleviate physical pain, but mental pain - grief, despair, depression, dementia - is less accessible to treatment. It's connected to who we are - our personality, our character, our soul, if you like.
I wasn't that much of a Disney buff growing up, but I love the mystical and magical nature of Peter Pan, and I have connected with that character through Owen [Suskind] in making this film ["Life, Animated"].
Swampy [ Marsh] and I live as far away from each other as we possibly can and still work together. But we just always felt like we were funnier when we were in the room together than we are when we're separate.
You couldn't hope to make a drama and have people rewriting on the day and having the actors making suggestions, "Wouldn't it be funny if my character did this?" "No. You're the actor. I'll tell you what to do."
Being hungry and staying hungry is something that I really try to take pride in. No matter what level of success I've achieved, I always love being able to talk about the craft and continue to talk about my art.
You hope for that with anything, but with a TV show, the writer and the actor being the right mix are more important than the actual writing of the pilot because you hope it's something that can have a long life.
I think rap in the street when they have rap competitions is thrilling because these kids are making it up and having a go at each other. They've got something to say. This is about getting their frustrations out.
I'm the classic example of alienation: I grew up in a middle-class household without art or books. I was going to be a chemical engineer until I went to the theatre for the first time at 16 and was blown away by it.
The challenge and the goal was to get inside Owen's [Suskind] world, because I really wanted to see it through his point of view. To achieve that naturalism, I used a screen in front of a camera as I interviewed him
I was drawing professionally by the time I was 12. I used to do very detailed sort of photorealistic pen-and-ink work, and I burned out on it around, like, high school. And cartooning really got me back into drawing.
I answered an ad, for a campus cartoonist at the university I was in, my freshman year. I was like, Oh, I can draw, and I'm sort of a funny guy. I should try this. Then they paid me to do a comic strip for the paper.
The actor's relationship to the crew is really a big dynamic that influences everything. When actors are assholes, it becomes problematic. When actors are great and sensitive and prepared, it makes a huge difference.
Change begins with understanding and understanding begins by identifying oneself with another person: in a word, empathy. The arts enable us to put ourselves in the minds, eyes, ears and hearts of other human beings.
Why so much interest in Uganda? Why are American conservatives lobbing for hate? The answer is that they feel they have lost the culture war here at home and are exporting their outdated ideas to the developing world.