Elizabeth Banks Quotes

I don't want people to just hand me music and be like, 'Here, you sound good on this. Sing it.' I want to be able to say, 'This is me.'

I really have to feel a sense of freedom in my storytelling.

My job is to just express something that I want to express. And if I'm ahead or behind the curve, that's for others to decide.

I always write the pieces I want to write.

But if I really want to produce my own work and tell stories, then I will.

I formed a resolution to never write a word I did not want to write; to think only of my own tastes and ideals, without a thought of those of editors or publishers.

I worked with some directors, and it was really collaborative, and I was sort of writing with them. I was giving so many pieces of myself to their movies, I thought, 'It's about time I use my own voice for me, and establish my own voice.' So I knew I wanted to make films.

Nothing beats novel writing because it's complete expression of you. You just control everything. Not even a movie director has that level of control.

My art and my creativities were totally something that was of my own heart and mind. I could never let anybody dictate to me what I should write and how I would write it.

The only place where any artist feels liberated is doing independent music. I have had great experience making music for The Dewarists and Coke Studio. No actor, producer or label is telling me what to do with my music. I'm the boss. It is my life, my expression.

Honestly, I never felt like I wasn't an artist on my own. I always felt like the music I made was mine, whether it was part of a collaboration with people.

I understand it's my role to realize people's dreams. I'm O.K. with that so long as my songs are my own. No one can take my songs away from me.

Very few artists are as independent as I am mentally, physically, spiritually and technically. I sit in my home studio and record things by myself. I don't need to get anybody's approval or validation.

If I'm going to go out to be a solo artist, it's because I want to do something different without having to wait on someone else's schedule or hobbies or be limited by other people's prejudices. I'd be kind of stupid not to exercise that.

If I only acted, I feel like I wouldn't have enough creative expression over my own sensibility, and also if I only acted, the notion of surrendering my fate and future to other people is deeply unsettling to me and it would make me uncomfortable.

When my writing really started to take off was when I made a decision that I would write only what I wanted to write, and if 10 people wanted to hear it, that's fine.

I don't want to use my creative energy on somebody else's user interface.

I love music because you can create a world through your records. I have total control over what I do and what I wear. It's like my own world out of my imagination rather than someone giving me lines.

I just want to make good films on my own wherever I can.

I have the most fun writing and directing. And I always choose myself as the lead actor.

They say I'm insane because I need to have so much creative control. They say I'm unmanageable, but I'm not. I just know what I like. I'm obsessed with it. If you can't control it, that's like having somebody else paint your pictures. How could you do that? I never could.

Being a filmmaker in the digital platform has given me complete creative control. I can make what I want, when I want. I don't have to wait to book an audition.

I wanted to express myself more fully through writing and directing. It just feels like a package deal. Anytime you create anything, you try to exert mastery over your world.

I don't like directing that much to want a career as a director for hire. I like to have as much creative control as possible.

My goal was, and still is, to write first, direct my own stuff whenever possible and control my own creative destiny.