Jimi Hendrix Quotes

You know, you should start to be in plays and things like that. Write some scripts. If you're an artist and you truly don't believe what you're spittin' then you need to really seriously be an actor then.

Well, the only way I can get a leading-man role is if I write it.

I always write the pieces I want to write.

I think, basically, I am an actor. Sometimes I'm an actor who's writing and sometimes an actor who's directing, but I think if I'm forced to fill out a form for my tax return, 'actor' is the first thing I write down.

I do like the idea of being an auteur in the sense of writing and being in your own stuff.

It's easier to cast yourself in something you've written because you know your voice.

I felt like when you're an actor, you don't get to fully creatively express yourself - most of the time, it's not your own writing or direction.

You learn early as an actor that creating your own material is the only way to have any control.

You're responsible for your own character to a degree, because when it comes to the final draft of the script, you might say, "Well, I think maybe I could add this here, add that there." But I find that I write just as well for the other characters as I do for myself. I think.

With my career, everything I do is me. There's no one that handles telling me what I should be about or how I should dress or anything. I'm hands on with absolutely everything. When I'm writing a song, I'm already thinking of the visual for the song and I'm already thinking of what I'm going to wear in that visual and what I'm going to wear when I perform. It all goes hand in hand. Everything I do is just me expressing different sides of myself.

I like artists to have some freedom.

Young people have realised that an artist is in charge of what they're doing - this crazy cynicism that artists were puppets has disappeared.

I don't like to write a script unless I know who the artist is. A lot of people can do it without that, and that's cool, but I like to look at the art.

Actors are the only honest hypocrites.

Somewhere in university, I realized that I hadn't been to classes in months, and I'd get tired to the point of narcolepsy doing anything other than some form of performing, directing, writing, or acting.

What I love about writing is that you don't need anyone's permission to do it. You can just get up in the morning, grab a pad and pen and start writing. With acting you're really beholden to everyone else.

Painters get up and paint. Writers get up and write. I like to get up and act. It's not a big deal. It makes me happy.

Write only if you cannot live without writing. Write only what you alone can write.

I don't know how to put on an act; I always show myself for what I am, in whatever mood I'm in.

I know how to write. So I am not totally at the mercy of filmmakers, but it's not a bad point.

This is where I begin to do the writing. I am now going to be the pen and not the paper.

People ask, 'Why would you cast yourself in your movie?' And, for me, it's more like an achievement that I am now not playing all the parts, you know? Like I was for so long, in all my performances and a lot of my short movies. So, that's where I'm coming from, not out of a kind of actress-y sense of myself. I mean, I don't really see myself as an actress, but more from performance: this is how you make something. You do it yourself. You're in it and you write it. I think I keep doing it that way, 'cause it's my way. It's what makes me feel like I know how to do it.

We should write, above all, because we are writers, whether we call ourselves that or not.

When I started, I was 23 years old directing my own music videos; I'm co-producing on my album; I'm hands-on with everything. I'm more than just a pretty boy: I'm an artist. I'm not saying I'm a hip-hop music artist, I'm an artiste.

You have to follow your own voice. You have to be yourself when you write. In effect, you have to announce, 'This is me, this is what I stand for, this is what you get when you read me. I'm doing the best I can - buy me or not - but this is who I am as a writer.