Vijay Sethupathi Quotes

I've always questioned the way dancers, myself included, must do the same role year in and year out. It's important for me to be able to say to myself, 'O.K., I don't want to be a prince anymore. I want to put on a leather jockstrap and pose.'

If a musician dares to get out of the box he's been put in, people get confused. They want people where they can find them! I am fortunate in some respects as I've always been known as someone who 'moves around' and tries different things. But generally, we are supposed to stay where we're put.

Every actor wants to break out of the box that they put you in and that's where I'm heading, out of the box as fast as I can.

There's this little box that African-American actors have to work in, in the first place, and I was able to rise above that box. I could have done a bunch of movies where I stayed as the Axel Foley or Reggie Hammond persona. But I didn't want to be doing the same thing all the time. Every now and then, you crash and burn, but that's part of it.

I've always been interested in kind of doing the thing that you weren't necessarily recommended to do.

I'm always drawn to writing things that feel like uncharted territory.

Being an artist is in part an act of rupture.

Rap is really just too conventional. Everybody does the same thing. No one ever pushes the box.

A maverick feels like he has no choice however difficult his choice of expression. In my case, it was going backwards into tonality. It seemed so wrong. The idea that progress is going into the past in a new way is very strange, even though there are precedents.

Pop music is so structured, and I'm excited to try and challenge that in my own work.

I never wanted to do the same kind of movies over and over anyway, so my theory on it all is I'm just gonna try and dodge the label and keep doing what I am doing.

I think if actors are successful at one thing, they paint themselves into a corner sometimes, and what's the fun in that?

I could have been on a path that led to different, more traditional teen romance, and 'Nip/Tuck' shook me loose from any generalization I might have been forced into. It helped me understand I wanted to take on things that were edgier, more challenging and riskier.

All the big artists I talk to say that they are trapped in a formula and they are looking for the music of tomorrow.

Redeeming subjects from cliche is its own pleasure and privilege.

I like to take on the thing I don't like at the moment. I like to find something that looks wrong or feels off, something that I would never have done in the past, like brocade. And then all of a sudden, if we can make brocade work, then we've really done something, because I hate it. And that's just a reference. I don't actually hate brocade.

As a creator, I always want to betray fans' expectations.

If it feels like we're re-creating something rather than creating something, we don't do it.

I remember in 2004, I had three gorgeous transgender models on the runway. That was my strength, in a way. That I did what I thought was gonna work, and I never paid attention to the industry's rules.

It's a great place to be as an artist: if you confuse your label, you're doing your job.

Being an actress, I want to play people that are not like me or the characters I've previously played. It's easier to get roles if you play a certain type of character but I don't want to do that.

I wanted to go beyond what K-pop is typically perceived as, and through 'Move' I was able to show a concept that's more edgy, more powerful.

Why would we want to do an experimental album? That's just selfish.

I don't want to make films that are constantly pleasing the audience, it is not my tradition.

The reason I did 'PPNH' was because I wanted to do something different, wacky, and mainstream after 'Barfi!'