Artistic Choice Quotes

It's not about choosing a specific genre; that's not how I go about deciding what movies to make.

If you are known to do something well, people want to see you do that. But what you choose to do is up to you. After 'Delhi Belly,' I got some 40 scripts - some on the same lines as 'Delhi Belly.' So, I guess people only get stereotyped if they want to.

I'm a working actor so I never really pick a film because of a genre, and I don't really turn them down because of genre. Anything that's unlike the picture I just finished is always more interesting.

I'm staying with film, and with silver prints, and no Photoshop. That's the way I learned photography: You make your picture in the camera. Now, so much is made in the computer... I'm not anti-digital; I just think, for me, film works better.

If I can't do an opera as well as most people, I won't do it at all. I don't want to touch Wagner because I think a lot of people do it a hell of a lot better than I could. I do the operas I think I can do, know something about.

Everybody's going to do the 3D slightly differently the same way that people are going to deal with color differently. Some movies downplay the color, some color is very vibrant. Color design is very different. We've got to think of 3D like color or like sound, as just part of the creative palette that we paint with and not some whole new thing that completely redefines the medium.

I could take a photo, but I'd rather paint a picture.

I never have particular actors planned when I'm in the process of writing.

When I was asked to do a song from 'In the Heights' at the White House in 2009, I chose instead to do 'Alexander Hamilton' because I felt like I was meeting a moment.

When I was working on the music for this I didn't want to just use pop songs as the score - most movies do it and I've done it before.

I'm interested in human nature. That's why I chose to become an actor.

If I get an interesting script, I will surely do it. I just don't want to do cliche films.

The artist must elect to fight for Freedom or for Slavery.

To me any given story has its appropriate form. There might be some story I get involved with that's begging to be a graphic novel, so that will have to be that way.

I used to draw and illustrate, but I don't do that anymore because I just like to write. I like to leave the illustrations to actual professional illustrators.

I go by my instinct in selecting scripts for my banner. Some times it works and some times it does not.

I did direct two short movies. I learned many things, and one of the things I learned was that I am not a director. It has to be visceral, and it's not for me. I feel much more comfortable acting.

I would rather be part of something that is entertaining than realistic.

I liked hip-hop, wanted to do rap, and wanted to stand on a large stage. If you look at it in another angle... it's something that I chose.

If I had gone to art college and everybody was being a conceptual artist, I probably would have wanted to be a portrait or landscape painter.

I do a film because I like the story and I want to give life to a character - I don't necessarily have to agree with the director.

I'm going to be quite choosy about singing. If I connect to a tune and like what I am offered to sing, I'll do it. I am an actor by profession, not a singer.

Cinema is a matter of what's in the frame and what's out.

I think it's dynamite, the way my career has just kept moving, even when people didn't know it did. I made such interesting films, but, yeah, they're not necessarily the big movies that go to the supermarket. I don't need those movies, because I don't wanna do them.

I don't really want to make a stylized film or anything too surreal.