Forest Whitaker Quotes

I guess it's a personal preference. Me, personally, I like to be able to tell the stories that I want to tell and do the things that I want to do. It takes a little bit more work, but that's what the production side is.

I don't have to ask anyone's permission to do anything. It's nice not have to get decisions out of three, sometimes four people, which can be like pulling teeth. So the amount of control that I have over what I'm doing is better for me as a solo artist.

I don't want to be owned by a corporation and obliged to make a certain type of album. I want to be free.

I make the kind of music I like.

I'm making the music I want to make, in my own space, and it's just incredible to be able to continue to do that.

We can be whatever we want to be. We can be a country band if we need to be. We can be a rock band if we need to be.

Ultimately, I think what I want from my career is to be able to create work for myself, and there's only so much you can do as an actor in a movie.

The reason why I'm not a pop star is I would have hated it. I'll stick to being an artist. I'm not trying not to be commercial; I am just doing what I do. I have finely tuned tastes, and that gets prioritized above everything else. That's just how it is.

I don't really like to stand in one spot. People say that you have your lane or a certain type of music. I don't believe that. You choose your own lane, whichever one you want, then the people decide whether it's good or not.

Make music when I want to in whatever style I would like to. That is something that I know that I'm not the only Nightwish member who has that. That's a luxury we can take, and we will.

What I like about being independent [in the music industry] is that anybody who does play the album on the radio and anybody who does choose to write in the media does so because they want to, because they like it or because they find something interesting there, not because they have to.

I don't really have a preferred genre. It's more up to the individual project itself and if I feel compelled by it.

I have always been a singer/songwriter, and I was pushed in places I didn't want to do, like pop or top forty. I don't belong there.

I believe in creative control. No matter what anyone makes, they should have control over it.

Well, since I produce and pay for my own albums, it is the ultimate freedom.

To break R&B into subcategories does a disservice to the music. I like to live in a zone where I can do whatever I want, where I don't have to worry about genre.

I would never say I will stay in electronic music for the rest of my life. I will always do whatever I feel like at that moment.

The way I look at a solo project is, I create what I want with whoever I want.

I've never let producers tell me what to do. Even when I was making television, I always did what I wanted to do, and if I couldn't, I didn't do it. It was a freedom that, these days, young directors starting out don't have.

I am not like Hitchcock, directing the reaction of the public or the audience. I don't like that. I think this is some kind of fascism - 'You need to react like that.' No. No. It's not like this; everyone needs to react as he can.

In climbing, sponsors typically support an athlete but provide very little direction, giving the climber free rein to follow his or her passion toward whatever is inspiring. It's a wonderful freedom, in many ways similar to that of an artist who simply lives his life and creates whatever moves him.

The ultimate thing is creating your own stuff and making projects for yourself. That's what Seth Rogen does. He's writing and producing a lot of the movies that he's the lead in.

Although I didn't set out to run my own label, I found it made sense quite quickly. I can say what I want and dance to my own tune, even if sometimes it's like nobody is listening. The trade-off is you stay 'cult' and resign yourself to a very modest level of what most people would call success.

If you have music you want to play that no one asks you to play, you have to go out and find where you can play it. It's called do or die.

When I do have time to work on music, I'm kind of selfish, and would rather work on my own stuff than someone else's.