Taika Waititi Quotes

I just block out the demons. I sing. I block them away. I put my pain into my music. I paint. I make my own videos. I direct myself. No one directs me anymore. I am in charge of my destiny.

Writing comes from that territory of being invalidated. But I had a sense of purpose, too. I wanted to stop apologising for my health, and I thought I might do some good.

Growing up in England, people told you why you couldn't do things. Suddenly, I had a publisher banging on my door, and was given the creative green light to simply make.

I had a brother who was bullying me to write something because we wanted to make our own movies. So it was out of necessity in the beginning. Over time, I began to see that I could create the roles I wanted to play rather than just waiting around.

Becoming a producer enables you to empower yourself, to make the film that you want to make. I have desires to make movies - I have movies I'm developing, and things that I'm interested in.

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.

Writing is far too hard work to say what someone else wants me to. Serving it as a craft, using it as a way of growing in my own understanding, seems to me to be a beautiful way to live. And if that product is shareable with other people, so much the better.

Somehow, I realized I could write books about black characters who reflected my own experiences or otherworldly experiences - not just stories of history, poverty and oppression.

Whether it's writing a monologue or writing standup or writing a screenplay or writing a play, I think staying involved in the creation of your own work empowers you in a way, even if you don't ever do it. It gives you a sense of ownership and a sense of purpose, which I think as an actor is really important.

Writing is much more satisfying on a certain level than acting ever was. Because you're not interpreting someone else's original idea, you can come up with your own.

It's very difficult to be asking other people for opportunities. It is much more empowering to be creating opportunities, to be the one who is saying, 'Look, I'm going to take this from the ground up and create a story that is meaningful to me as an Asian American and cast it with Asian Americans and have Asian Americans writing it.'

I write for whoever needs to read it.

Acting is a job of permission. Someone has to give you permission to do it. But I have started to be like, 'I only want to do things that I want to do,' and writing has afforded me the luxury.

If you can write and create original characters, do your own show, develop your own material, it gives you more power than just waiting around to be hired.

Regardless of anything, I'm gonna write my own story and my own ending.

Feeling useful in medicine allows me to not feel so stupid when making up stories.

Writing my first book, 'Beautiful,' was the time that I was able to write the truth of it - that I was despairing at times, that I got depressed and felt like I couldn't cope. Writing became about being honest.

Sounding like I have agency in a song is important to me. I want to feel empowered by the music.

I really preferred the characters I could totally create by myself, because I always think of myself as an actor first.

I always felt like - I mean, I was told, really - I couldn't go too far with the productions because it didn't appeal to black radio. It wasn't until I decided I was going to do what I wanted to do or I was going to quit that I empowered myself. I took my power back.

At some point, I would like to start creating my own things. If people don't write the scripts I like, then I will do my own.

If you have a book to write, write it. If you want to record an album, record it. No need to wait for someone in a cubicle halfway across the country to decide if you're worthy.

...I can write my own stories and I can write myself in.

Don't wait around for someone else to tell your story. Do it yourself by whatever means necessary.

They didn't dictate to me as to what kind of music that they wanted me to play or what tunes, what musicians that I was going to use. They let me do my thing. That's one reason I stayed there for twenty-eight years.