I don't care about the image I have. What matters to me is that with every film, I am growing more and more as an actor, pushing and challenging myself.
Nas' longevity comes from him having strong lyrical value in his songs, him being more like a poet and improving over time.
The writers that I aspire to, like Joni Mitchell and Randy Newman, they'll tell you that the work gets harder, not easier. And they set that bar for us where we're always striving to do something better than the last time, whether it's the next song or just the next line.
When your art fails, make better art.
As a lyricist, I'm really trying to raise my level of quality.
Even when I have someone playing the song I give them the idea. I'm learning. I'm getting better over the years.
In the beginning, I found it hard to give my songs away, but now I've realised it's exciting, and it's only making me better.
So as long as I'm a working actor, I can improve. I want to work with people that frighten me and excite me, and characters that I don't believe I'm the best person for the part but I'm still gonna try anyway. Those are my favorite roles.
To become a better actor, one needs to look inwards and understand oneself better. Then, you can create magic on screen.
I think it is important to surround myself with artists who share the same goals and aspirations. This way, I am constantly encouraged to sharpen my craft and challenge myself.
If an artist is any good at all, then he or she will have a later phase that's more interesting than the early one.
I can't speak for other artists; every group has a different approach. For us, it will always be important to keep working hard, dancing better, writing better songs, touring, and setting an example.
To be honest with you, I don't have one track that I consider better than the next because all I'm trying to do is still grow as an artist. I got way better since the early nineties, as far as putting words together. My best energy probably was the '90s, because I was new.
I thought, 'If I go to uni, I can read and watch people and take many different subjects - take philosophy modules - and have time to travel in the summers,' which I did. I thought, 'I hope this will make me a better actor,' and it did.
I think that new artistic challenges help you grow both as a person, as an artist, and then they feed back into your other work, and tend to magnify it.
I want to make a better record than I made the last time. I want to grow. I want to discover new things about myself creatively.
I feel like I have way more resources, way more experience. I'm better. But my fans romanticize the earlier stuff, and I don't think it's just like a nostalgia thing of "He's not as good" - I think it's because that earlier stuff was aggressively marketed as a lifestyle to them.
It's dedicating yourself to your craft. Spending thousands of hours in a studio learning how to write a song, learning how to play different chords, training yourself to sing. You know, to get better and better.
Creating art is a habit, one that we practice daily or hourly until we get good at it
I plan to take Hoods Up to another level of art once we've reached the level of doing so.
I just want to make great films and be good in them. And I think that my perception of what's great in a film is constantly evolving.
What still concerns me the most is: am I on the right track, am I making progress, am I making mistakes in art?
I look at my paintings for a very long time before letting them out of my studio. I like to get on the treadmill and look around at all of my paintings while I exercise. I try to stare them down to make them reveal their weaknesses. If they reveal weaknesses, they get repainted.
Television has taught me an economy of style I didn't have before. I feel it has done me nothing but good.
It takes a long time to make a painter - even with a good artist's education - but without one it tries the patience of Job; it is a great thing if one does not go backward.
