Artistic Roots Quotes

To imagine myself in different ways comes from my beginnings in the theatre. People are more accepting when you go 'apparently', 'wildly' afield from who you are or where you were brought up.

I come from a mixed family, where my mother is art house cinema and my father is B-movie genre cinema. They're estranged, and I've been trying to bring them together for all of my career to one degree or another.

My background is on the stage, so when I'd write movies, they'd be a lot like plays.

The reason I started dancing in the first place was my dad took me to see 'Bring In 'da Noise, Bring In 'da Funk' when I was 9.

I just wanted to have a look at my whole musical career, get right back to when I started and why I started doing it in the first place.

I've always been doing some sort of art. I started off, when I was very young, painting.

I'm a musical theater guy. That's where I came from. That's where I go whenever I have the chance. It's my first love.

Overall, Korean pop serves as the foundation of my musical upbringing. As a result, the melodies that I create just exude that type of vibe.

I had danced with Janet Jackson and P. Diddy so I had done a bunch of hip hop. Really and truly my roots are in modern and ballet but, professionally, that's not really out there any more, unfortunately, so these artists aren't really having a lot of ballet dancers behind them so I had to learn hip hop really quick.

I was brought up on Black Sabbath, David Bowie, 50 Cent, and Guru. And it all comes out in my own music somewhere.

I'm touched by the Beatles. I want some of the music I do to reflect that. Here I am. I love Sly Stone and James Brown and Stevie Wonder, and I want my music to reflect some of that. Here I am. I'm touched by Jon Hendricks. I want some of my music to reflect that. And when I write, you're going to hear it.

'Boy,' 'October,' 'War,' 'The Unforgettable Fire' and 'The Joshua Tree,' those records, they're part of my musical DNA and structure.

I wouldn't be who I am if my parents hadn't been musicians.

I have lived in Cornwall from the age of 4, so I have always been aware of the artistic heritage that the county has. I feel very proud to be able to connect to this.

Nothing is art if it does not come from nature.

The Old and New Testaments are the Great Code of Art.

My influences have been what I call my four Bs - the primary one being the blues, then Borges, Baraka, and Bearden.

I like the Beatles. They're at the core of my musicality. And John Lennon's my spiritual father.

Many people seem to think that art is a luxury to be imported and tacked on to life. Art springs out of the very stuff that life is made of. Most of our young authors start to write a story and make a few observations from nature to add local color. The results are invariably false and hollow. Art must spring out of the fullness and richness of life.

No matter what setting I play in, I will always be New Orleans. It's one of the only cities where you can hang out with the Marsalis family, the Neville brothers, whoever it might be, and we all play together.

Theater originated with technology. People forget that.

I came out of a sort of experimental background, and I didn't ever really expect - or even desire - a career as a feature filmmaker.

I had no desire to be in the movies. All my training had been in the theater, thank God.

My parents didn't have records, they didn't have radios, and they didn't listen to music. My grandmother was my main connection to art and music. She could play piano very well, and she had perfect pitch.

For me, I was a musician long before I was an actor.