Tom Cullen Quotes

I think, as a filmmaker, it's important to be honest with yourself at all times in terms of what's working and what's not.

If I write when I'm low, it will be a dark song, but I don't care. I want to be honest with myself at all times.

I guess I kind of realized that my whole life isn't one giant press junket. I don't have to be smiling all the time and always have the perfect answer.

The responsibility of an artist is to be honest with themselves.

With songs, I've always pledged to be honest. I write my songs because I've lived them.

I don't do all the things I say I do in my songs, but nobody does.

I've always just focused on the work, and I've just tried to be honest with the work. If the work speaks to people, fantastic.

You have to be honest about what kind of films you want to make.

I felt like a failure for so long because I wasn't able to access myself in the way I knew I would have if I was going to make music that mattered. I knew I was going to have to learn how to be honest.

It's harder to put yourself in a place where you could easily be seen as a fake. But that's more interesting to me.

I'm trying to find the truth in myself. To play somebody else doesn't interest me. It's not the focus of my life. I can get through most scenes and do the acting part of it, and at best, I'm going to be mediocre.

You can write anything you want to,--a six-act blank verse, symbolic tragedy or a vulgar short, short story. Just so that you write it with honesty and gusto, and do not try to make somebody believe that you are smarter than you are. What's the use? You can never be smarter than you are.

I get the greatest joy from just doing anything, being an actor. Doing music, and doing what I love to do. I don't make a huge distinction between comedy and drama. I think the whole point is just trying to be as honest, from moment to moment, as you can be. If you're honest about the material, and the material is ridiculous, then you're in a comedy.

I could not sit seriously down to write a serious Romance under any other motive than to save my life, & if it were indispensable for me to keep it up & never relax into laughing at myself or other people, I am sure I should be hung before I had finished the first chapter. No - I must keep my own style & go on in my own way; and though I may never succeed again in that, I am convinced that I should totally fail in any other.

I’m going out to let my real talent show, not to just stand there and dance around. Personally, I’d never lip-synch. It’s just not me.

It's just a moment that doesn't feel 100-percent truthful, a kind of a square peg/round hole situation. Which is why the preproduction on a movie is so important, because you can't just push those through.

I let the actors work out their ideas before shooting, then tell them what attitudes I want. If a scene isn't honest, it stands out like a sore thumb.

Don't go chattering to the stars if you're going to do it with your eyes closed.

When I play myself, I want to be a slightly better person. It just agrees. Everything I play about myself is kind of true, but it's amplified. We all edit, don't we? If you're self-aware, you stop yourself - you know how to behave properly.

I was demanding of myself a deeper and greater honesty, more and more revelation in my work in order to give it back to the people where it goes into their lives and nourishes them and changes their direction and makes light bulbs go off in their head and makes them feel. And it isn't vague, it strikes against the very nerves of their life and in order to do that you have to strike against the very nerves of your own.

People ask me all the time, "What are your influences? Are you trying to do Beckett?" It's like, "No, I'm trying to do me." Whatever that is. I don't know what that is, but that's the basis. I'm trying to be true and I'm trying to be honest.

I feel guilty when people say I'm the greatest on the scene. What's good or bad doesn't matter to me; what does matter is feeling and not feeling. If only people would take more of a true view and think in terms of feelings. Your name doesn't mean a damn, it's your talents and feelings that matter. You've got to know much more than just the technicalities of notes; you've got to know what goes between the notes.

Well usually if I'm having a sh***y day, I don't post anything. I don't go out just to tell everyone I'm having a great day, even if I'm not.

I suppose all writers are crazy, but if they are any good, I believe they have a terrible honesty.

I didn't set out to write certain kinds of songs - I just set out to write good songs.