Mark Duplass Quotes

I have a lot of real life experience that I can draw on. And I think that shows in the characters that I play because I'm always trying to find somebody - or find characters to play that I can identify with on a personal level or relate to. And I think it makes for a little bit more of an honest portrayal.

While you're improvising, you may come up with something which will break him up. As soon as that smile comes out, you know that, hey, we're having fun.

So it was just funny to read a script that was just similar to what had been going on in my life.

I think I take little pieces of inspiration, then kind of do what's real to me and what's going on in my life or what I observe from other people's experiences and hope other people connect with it, too.

In order for me to write, I have to experience life. I write the songs based on real life, and I perform them from a very real place.

I think you have to experience life and then pull certain experiences into your act and your character's life, whoever you play, so you're full.

I love improvising.

If you'd asked me then if I saw how big 'The Steve Harvey Morning Show' was going to be, I couldn't tell you. But I knew I could reach people not as a character but as Steve Harvey, because although I tell jokes for a living, I've also lived, and I think I can relate to you more than you know.

Sometimes I'm asked if I do research for my stories. The answer is yes and no. No, in the sense that I seldom plow through books at the library to gather material. Yes, in the sense that the first fifteen years of my life turned out to be one big research project.

For me, writing has always come out of living a fairly to-the-bone kind of life, just really being present to a lot of life. The writing has been really a byproduct of that.

You can't write about stuff you don't know about. You have to live it. You have to roll up your sleeves and get your hands dirty. Live life to be a good songwriter.

The first record I spent five years writing and it was an amalgamation of all the things that happened in my life from the time I was fifteen to the time I was twenty.

Sound comes out of a life experience.

I've got research, I have my own life experience I can apply, and I have my imagination.

Whatever I'm writing comes organically out of my life.

I don't think of work between albums. Of course, I go through regular life and I live and I experience different things, good and bad, and it does help me, but I don't think about writing or what I'm gonna do with whatever's going on while I'm going through it.

My main goal as a songwriter is to make something that inspires people. To write things about my life that people can relate to. Whether it's a whole record or just one song for someone, I hope it can do that for them. Knowing that I have the ability to do that is inspiring to me.

I think I've lived a pretty hard life. What I mean by hard is that... I've been kind of reckless with things. I'm a passionate person. I'm a super passionate person. I think there's definitely been sorrow in my life, good and bad. I think it comes through. I hope it comes through in my writing because to me that's what artistry is.

I've always kind of ripped from real life to some degree or at least how I'm feeling in the moment.

Most of the songs I write are just very directly from my life. I don't have a big imagination. Whenever I tried to write from fantasy, it comes out sounding really fake.

I also believe that writing becomes worthwhile and vitalized only through a full and exciting life.

I try to think of it not as writer's block, but a time where you just need to live life and experience things so you have something to write about.

You have to live what you write, or you have to know it. There are exceptions, like story songs, where you just have to have your facts straight. But I think you don't have to live a hard life to be a good or interesting songwriter.

I think a valid approach to being a musician is to take all of the experience of your life and filter it through your personality and send it back out there, and that's what art is.

I can obviously relate to a character who is an artist, because the creative process is a big part of my life.