I yearn to make a really good, intelligent movie before I die: I don't completely rule out the possibility, but in Hollywood, I'm not bankable.
Lyrics over some nice beats - that's what the people want from us.
Studios weren't banging on my door to offer me parts... And I thought, well how am I ever going to make movies that speak to my heart and to my values?
Art is not journalism. In art, you don't make it to convey a message.
Walt Disney wasn't making films for kids. Neither were the Muppets. A lot of the great, really cool films, they weren't making them for kids.
I still write the occasional short story, and poked at a novel once, but it's just not what I want to do.
I went to Princeton High School when I was very serious about being an artist.
As creators, our pursuit of perfection might be misguided, particularly if it comes at the expense of the things that matter.
If your dream is to tell stories, interesting stories, play interesting people, that's the bottom line. The people that I play have to be extraordinary.
I don't know if I'm selfless - I still want to make a great record. I want to make a hit record. I want to tour; that's not completely selfless. But the truth is I'm not interested in people coming to my show for me as much as I am for them coming to my show for themselves. That's always been how I am.
I'd like to make as much art as I possibly can before I die, so I'm working on a few things.
When you first start out, you want to be Fellini, or you want to be Bergman.
Yes, I want to work with Rick Rubin. Yes, I want to work with Trent Reznor. Yes, I want to work with Madlib. Yes, I want to get with all these wonderful people. Collie Buddz, Marsha Ambrosius. I just want to go, man. I'm gonna keep on making music.
When I graduated, I was director of my school's sketch comedy group, and I knew that I wanted to be writing and performing my own sketch comedy. It kind of made me want to do my own one-person sketch group.
My working habit is to separate my aims as a painting from my aims as a poet. They come from very different places and ultimately lead me to very different places... I'll leave what I mean by 'places' ambiguous.
I don't try to force-feed it or put any things on the images until I'm making a painting. It's not photorealism. Photorealism's goal is to reproduce a photograph. The best photorealism can't beat a printer, and I have a really nice printer. I don't want to go blind doing what a printer can do.
I'm not making films just to be bold.
I'm competitive with myself, not at the expense of everything around me. I never wanted to be a movie star. I just wanted to act.
We're not trying to change the world; just music.
There's certain songs that you're gonna record that you hope to touch people and change lives, and there's certain songs that you know that are not going to be that serious.
I wanted to do film. I was living in New York and working in theater, but I always wanted to do film.
It's been an objective of mine since I started writing songs to include both intellect and energy.
All I want to do is to make movies that are appealing to people.
I always wanted to photograph the universal subjects.
The artist who aims at perfection in everything achieves it in nothing.
