Yara Shahidi Quotes

Growing up in the acting world, you have a lot of opportunities to change who you are and what you believe in based on how people treat you. I never wanted to do that.

I wake up and play a different person every day. Playing all these different characters and trying to figure out who your true authentic self is at the core of that as you're playing all these different roles, and man, that self-awareness starts to come into effect. And you start to see who you really are.

However, I don't by any means suggest that I'm always playing myself.

To maintain one's individuality, integrity, and true personality in the theatre is a big task.

I've continually reminded myself that I never want to change. I could be on the cover of a magazine today, but next week someone else is going to be on that cover. You always have to remain the same person because when those opportunities end, guess what you have? You have you. And if you change from being you, you have nothing anymore.

Be more concerned with your character than your reputation, because your character is what you really are, while your reputation is merely what others think you are.

We have many identities, and we can't be authentic to them all. The best we can do is be sincere in our efforts to earn the values we claim.

I draw the line between me and my character.

I know I must be true to myself.

At the end of the day, I represent myself first and foremost, and I'm not going to ever purposely try and misrepresent myself.

That worried me early on in my career - that I would change. If I went to New York or Los Angeles that I would become somebody I wouldn't like. That person that gets a big head and starts thinking they're more special than anyone else. I never wanted to be that person.

It's so funny, you go to acting school thinking you're going to learn how to be other people, but really it taught me how to be myself. Because it's in understanding yourself deeply that you can lend yourself to another person's circumstances and another person's experience.

I want to be able, as days go by, always to look myself straight in the eye.

You have to be honest about who you are.

I would never let somebody say that they're me. That would be the ultimate betrayal of what I stand for.

I didn't want to lose my sense of myself in my profession.

But to do this kind of work, you have to be very strong, otherwise you lose your personality, your identity.

Just stay true to yourself and true to wut you believe.

If you do not express your own original ideas, if you do not listen to your own being, you will have betrayed yourself.

I cannot be a character in a bad movie. I can't be.

At the end, the key thing is you've got to live with yourself. That's the real test. Everything else is fleeting.

You've got to be who you are. You've got to be honest with people. If your views change on something, you've got to be willing to express it.

You can't, in sound morals, condemn a man for taking care of his own integrity. It is his clear duty.

It's a very big deal to me to remain the same person because I know all of this is going to be gone one day and I'm just going to have myself.

You can spend a bit of yourself when you give yourself to a character. At the end of a job, you have to remind yourself who and what you are.