Elvis Stojko Quotes

I always wanted to be an independent maverick, writing plays and putting them on myself.

Certain people like the way I make films, and others do not. I've come to terms with the fact that there's no other way I can make films. If I tried to do it in a different way, it would never work.

I am my own audience. I always picture me and my mates and think, 'What would we enjoy listening to?'

You think, 'You hired me because I'm a creative artist with a vision. Don't try and knock it out of me.'

I'm just following my own art, and I just think that the only thing I can do to be a great artist is do the best job I can in whatever movie I do.

My style of songwriting is influenced by cinema. I'm a frustrated filmmaker. A fan once said to me, 'Girl, you make me see pictures in my head!' and I took that as a great compliment. That's exactly my intention.

An artist must be a reactionary. He has to stand out against the tenor of the age and not go flopping along.

What is exciting is taking back the excitement of being able to debut something to an audience in exactly the way you want to.

One of the great joys of being able to write something you can make, if you get certain actors you want and love, you're kind of buying yourself a front row seat to watch them work.

Audiences are very willing to be taken somewhere, and to ask an audience beforehand what it wants is probably, I think, a mistake. Much better you should tell them what you want and hope they agree with it.

What's great is that starting a blog can get you lot of attention for your writing. But it doesn't have to be for anybody other than yourself.

Musical theater is great; you get painted up, you get to play princesses and witches, and you sing. The joy alone of that can really carry a lot.

Every great dance company, even when it seems poised in perfect balance, needs constant renewal of both repertory and performers.

The last thing a young artist should do in poetry or any other field is think about what's in style, what's current, what are the trends. Think instead of what you like to read, what do you admire, what you like to listen to in music. What do you like to look at in architecture? Try to make a poem that has some of those qualities.

You make a movie, and if somebody reads something into it, then great, more power to him.

Every director is completely different.

All the best performers bring to their role something more, something different than what the author put on paper. That's what makes theatre live. That's why it persists.

So it's not so much that I set out to do something different, it's just that the songs themselves require their own individual voice and attention.

From the very beginning, I started doing music performances with a lot of theatrical aspects to them, where humor was a part of it but not necessarily had to be. Humor is just another tool to make the palette more rich and interesting for myself and eventually for the public. It's a great way to break out of convention.

If it helps me in the way that if this movie is successful, I get to make more films, great, and the more films that I make and the more interest that I'm allowed to cover, the better for me and the better, hopefully, for the people who like to watch me.

I don't know what an audience wants to see but I know what I like to see.

It's like a kitchen, acting. Put a chef in a kitchen and they will have different recipes. Whatever your recipe, what works for you won't work for another.

There's such a freewheeling nature to 'Second City,' and the greatest thing about 'Second City' was having a sophisticated audience night after night who appreciated what it was. They knew it wasn't all going to be great when you improvised, so they were very forgiving that way.

I work with structure, but I go outside the box and give it my own spin. I adore the challenge of creating truly modern clothes - where a woman's personality and sense of style are realized.

I feel like the great filmmakers who have a true voice, yeah they take the notes, they understand the notes, but it's really about the notes underneath the notes. When you do a test screening and somebody says, 'Well, I didn't like the love story,' but it was probably just too long.