Our business is complicated because intimacy is part and parcel of our profession; as actors, we are paid to do very intimate things in public. That's why someone can have the audacity to invite you to their home or hotel, and you show up.
Tact in audacity is knowing how far you can go without going too far.
When, President Obama, do you mean to cease abusing our patience? How long is that madness of yours still to mock us? When is there to be an end to that unbridled audacity of yours swaggering about as it does now?
The day-to-day microaggressions that we all face, yeah, you have to let some stuff slide, or you go, 'I gotta keep moving; there's bigger fish to fry.' It's something that I still deal with. But I've tried to have the audacity of equality and to follow my heart in those moments where I feel like something is wrong.
My dad's from that generation like a lot of immigrants where he feels like if you come to this country, you pay this thing like the American dream tax: like you're going to endure some racism, and if it doesn't cost you your life, well hey, you lucked out. Pay it; there you go, Uncle Sam. I was born here, so I actually had the audacity of equality.
What I learned from Mel Brooks was audacity - in performance as in life. Maybe you go too far, but try it.
Well, all the plays that I was trying to write were plays that would grab an audience by the throat and not release them, rather than presenting an emotion which you could observe and walk away from.
When you're singing you can hear the echo of people in the audience singing every single word with you, and that was that big dream that I had for myself. It's happening.
When I sing, I feel like when you're first in love. It's more than sex. It's that point two people can get to they call love, when you really touch someone for the first time, but it's gigantic, multiplied by the whole audience. I feel chills.
One thing about television, it brings out personality. People are able to watch me in action. They hear my voice and see my eyes. There's nothing I can hide. That's me. Television brings out your flaws, your weaknesses, your strengths, and you truths. The audience either likes you or it doesn't.
Sometimes when you take strong stands, if you're not called to do it, you're dividing the audience you're trying to reach.
It's pretty inappropriate of fans to think they can expect any kind of narrative from showrunners or writers or actors. I just don't think that's the way you should engage with material that you're watching as a passive audience member.
Some movies bring out the creativity in you. Every single audience member can become creative in the face of a particular movie. If you happen to like my films, it's because my films provide a bed for you on which you can find your creativity. The Hollywood movies do not provide that for you.
I don't write scenes where one person is right and one person is wrong. It's very much by design that everyone has a point of view that you as an audience member can understand.
Sometimes, actors in films will play the ending of the movie, or even the middle, and you know where it's going - as an audience member, you can read the actor.
You start as an audience member and create a world you're interested in, and then you move into the telling of those stories, bringing what has interested you as an audience member.
I always kind of aim with the action stuff to make it feel like, as an audience member, you're experiencing what the people are experiencing. As soon as you go into slow-mo or repeated edits, shooting it like it's a stunt, it takes it out of that reality. The more real you make that stuff, the more tense it will be.
The way Hollywood portrays mothers - you're either all good and saint-like, or you're all bad. And I think the real honesty of motherhood is not given a voice in movies. I miss that as an audience member.
I think too often in films, people think endings are a summation of plot, and I don't like that. Because once you know where you're going as an audience member, then it's like a video game. You're just waiting for them to get through the levels and beat the bad guy. And I just think that's boring.
Being on Oprah? You realize that there are a couple of types of audience members. There are like the cult people in the audience who are just crying before she gets on. And then there are the people who are playing it cool. I definitely was somewhere in the middle.
