Antoine Fuqua Quotes

I think it's important that we don't all have to hold our heads high all the time saying everything's fine.

Even though 'Kroll' was a crazy sketch show with big characters, one of the things I'm proud of about the show is that the characters were always kind of coming from an emotionally honest place for whoever I thought that character was.

Only a handful of people are honest when they sing. A lot of people sing about very vague things, or they'll sing about someone breaking up with them, but a lot of people don't go too deep into their past and stuff, because they don't want it to be let out. I just do it anyway.

The best characters to play are the ones who have deep internal conflict.

I try to pick characters that I find interesting and complex and that I feel I can bring something of myself to.

On the other hand, I still approach each book with the same basic plan in mind - to put some people under severe stress and see how they hold up.

I've always relied a lot on landscape in my books, the atmosphere of a particular place, as well as a fair amount of external action. While writing 'Chance,' it occurred to me that this is the most internal book I've ever written. So much of the action takes place in Chance's head.

If I write when I'm low, it will be a dark song, but I don't care. I want to be honest with myself at all times.

Action films are great, but an action film that has characters that are compelling and a story that people can care about is something even better. We love to see action heroes that are vulnerable, that are sensitive, that are family people, that are accessible.

I learn something new everyday about myself as an actor, my capabilities, how far I can stretch myself, throw out emotions I never knew I had.

I want to explore more sides of humanity and myself. That's what acting is about.

I don't think of my songs as sad songs. I think of them as vulnerable and honest. I crack jokes in between songs, so people don't leave feeling too dark.

While I was writing 'The Spare Room,' I thought, 'I'm going to look really bad in this book - there's no redeeming this kind of awful, ugly emotion', and I thought, 'I'm not going to change it. I'll call the character 'Helen' and admit to those feelings.' I think this is a reason why people write.

I've never been a method actress; I've never been that person that wants to imagine horrible things happening in your own life in order to exploit them for your emotional being in the movie. I'm just not good at doing that.

Adversity is the trial of principle. Without it a man hardly knows whether he is honest or not.

I tend to find characters who lack vulnerability dull.

It's so easy for me to do a boy-bashing pop song, but to sit down and write honestly about something that's really close to me, something I've been through, it's a totally different thing.

People in day-to-day life tend to skim the surface of things and be polite and careful, and that's not the language I speak. I like talking about feelings, fears and memories, anguish and joy, and I find it in music.

Part of the reason of being an actor is you like playing other people's lives and exploring all the psychologies in that and the emotions.

Acting is usually regarded as a wholly narcissistic pursuit but there really is a hunger in me to unravel the human condition.

Acting is different from stand-up. It gives you this ability to enter into another character, to create another person.

When I'm playing a bad guy, a lot of it is imagined: things I thought I wanted to do, but I never would do them.

I think Ada in 'The Piano' is the most interior character I've ever had the chance to play, either on the stage or in anything I've done for film or TV.

I think it's easier to be cynical. I think the temptation, often, among writers is to write about anything other than real, true, deep feelings.

I want people to feel the times where they don't feel good. You should dive into those emotions, because that's what I do with my music.