Ne-Yo Quotes

Fortunately, our audiences are used to a kind of boredom in the theatre, and if the writer is skillful, he will flatter them into thinking: 'Why, that's us up there, and aren't we - for all our little foibles - pretty nice guys and gals?'

The power of story and the power of a well-crafted film or television show is really all you need to speak to people. I think Hollywood is sort of catching up to that.

At the end of the day, I'm a fan of great stories and great songs.

One of the reasons wrestling works is because it allows people to suspend their disbelief. They may know it's not real, but if it's done well enough, they get sucked into it emotionally. And that's why they watch.

Whether we're talking about books, music or film, it's all about storytelling. You get a powerful new way of connecting with people once you hear their stories.

That's what people want to watch - somebody telling a story. So if you go in and tell a story that makes sense to them, that touches them, then they're going to watch; then they'll tell a friend and that type of thing. In terms of how many people are watching in a given week, it's more the advertiser's job, not mine.

You don't paint pictures to put them in your attic. You want people to look at them.

Audiences want great story telling; it's why white people watch my show 'Black in America.' It's why black people watch 'Latina in America.' All of that is statistically shown and proven but it was because it was good story telling about people who were outsiders.

I like reading books with both hands, with my heart pumping, with blood on the page. So I'm interested in people who make stuff, and I'm interested in the lives that make the text. To read a book or watch a movie any other way, to me, personally, feels like a waste of time and misapplication of energy.

Rather than disliking theatre, I've expressed a preference for television because it tends to deal in its small way much more with issues and is able to reach a broader church of people than theatre.

In drama, I think, the audience is a willing participant. It's suspending a certain kind of disbelief to try to get something out of a story.

You can't but know that if you can capture the emotions of the audience as well as their minds, the play will work better, because it's a narrative art form.

A great byproduct of a TV show, movie, or play is when it can act as a catalyst for someone.

I don't care how much hardware you throw at an audience. If they are not emotionally invested in the thing, it's zero. I can name a slew of films, but I have no ax to grind. I understand the commerce of Hollywood probably better than anyone.

I've never fallen into what I consider to be a trap of trying to figure out something analytically that could be a very popular film. I would hope my enthusiasm could match up with something with that potential.

I like finishing a movie and having this living, breathing thing.

Going through this musical experience really helped us to understand the core of the film.

The reason I think the shows I do are successful with a wider public is because they tap into something that's beyond dance and is about being told a story. That's what people want.

You can't make the audience fall in love with a character you don't like.

I think people are getting into these 'Empire' songs because of the emotional investment they have in the characters. You kind of feel like you know the songs already because you just watched them play out in front of you with these characters.

Not every work of art connects with the audience.

Contemporary art will never achieve the audience of football, pop music, or television, so I think we should stop comparing its possible area of influence to that of big mass-media events.

Whether it's Brad Pitt up there, if there's a good moment up there, and you get pulled into the emotion, you're not thinking, 'Oh, that's Brad Pitt. He's an actor, and he's famous.' That's kind of the nature of storytelling, right? You sit around the fire and tell a story, and you can get sucked into that story.

Films are never meant as solutions; they just provide entertainment value.

It takes two guys to tell a story, paint a picture, so our audience can be entertained and brought into the match. You need to suck people in emotionally to a match, and it takes both parties to paint that picture.