Creative Adaptability Quotes

Hip-hop has survived as a sonic practice more than anything else. It's an approach to music-making based in sampling and rhyming over beats, that's proven far more versatile than its detractors thought it would.

I remember, working on 'Lost,' I learned very quickly the way that I had to approach the material or even ask the director questions. It was always prefaced with, 'Would it be wrong for me to assume?' Because I didn't know where my character on 'Lost' was going.

Acting isn't always about the amount of talent you have, or your ability to cry on command. The point is, how well can you take direction? How well can you put aside your own ideas or ego and listen to the ideas of the director and the people above you, while not giving up the passion and drive of that character?

I'm a producer first, and I know music, so I can jump on any song, whether it's pop or urban, without changing me. Whatever I do, I'm gonna make it classic.

I do admire a lot of artists now who are completely multi-faceted - they're doing seven different jobs all at once and it doesn't seem to faze them whatsoever. It just astonishes me completely and I have nothing but admiration for them.

I'll do whatever I can do to remain employed. I'm just not precious about doing comedy or doing drama. I never want to do something in order to prove to other people what I can do.

There was a time when I was like, 'I'm a dramatic actor,' 'I'm a comedian'... There's no line anymore. You have to be able to cross over.

I think most character people that you talk to, it's like, whatever they offer us, we are thrilled to do. I won't do anything that's immoral or illicit. I did turn down eating a dead body once. I turned down a few really creepy horror movies. For the most part, I can usually find a way into whatever character.

I have a fairly limited drawing style. I'm not like my friend Derek Kirk Kim, who can pretty much change his style at will. My drawing style can handle some of my stories, but not all of them.

The greatest thing about me is I have always been able to reinvent. We have done that about three or four times with my sound.

I would never tie in creative with a talent's contract. To me, that is insanity. Creative needs change, talents evolve or not, and to be locked in to a talent having the ability to not run the plays that the team dictates is not smart business.

I'm not more into one scene than any other, and that's why I feel very lucky to be able to go into two different styles of music and be successful at both.

I'm surviving and developing as a writer. I don't know what brings you to mass attention in terms of sales. But I've gotten more and more comfortable with it. Of course if that changes, I'll be comfortable with that. All I can do is write the best books I can.

Artwise, I'm kind of a chameleon. I don't have an established style or anything like that.

Some writers say they cannot write in front of a window; many say they cannot function without almost perfect quiet. A writer with only two hours a day can write in the back of an open truck on the Interstate.

I think we're past the point in entertainment where you can have one thing and explode. If you have one thing, people ask, 'All right, what else?' You have to be multihyphenate.

The Australian film industry is a small industry, so you have to really be flexible within working in different mediums. A lot of actors work in theater, film, and television, because there's not much opportunity in terms of employment there. So you do have to be resourceful and be able to flex your muscles artistically.

There were two things I discovered when I toured with Snoop. One was that the band was all jazz musicians. The second was to instil in me a respect for other styles of music. From then on, whenever I played a new kind of music, I came with the same kind of open mind. What are they trying to do? What are they hearing? How do they see music?

In this day and age, if you're aspiring to be an actor, and you're putting all your eggs in one basket, you could be disappointed. I started out as an actor, but I forced myself to be a writer, even though I wasn't very good at it and had never written. I don't think I ever passed an English course in my life. My first 8 to 10 scripts were pretty horrendous, but I stayed at it until I eventually found a voice and a subject that people were interested in. So, I recommend that you go out and try to be as versatile as possible: writer, actor, producer and especially director.

I don’t want to be an old-man filmmaker, making old-man movies, and I don’t want to be the one not to know when to leave the party.

I think critics tend to think that comedy is freakin' math. Like, this is the Pythagorean Theorem. They're not sophisticated enough to know that comedy is fluid, that it evolves, and these organic evolutions are what you have to embrace.

My whole way of looking at entertainment and audience engagement - and my ability to go from one genre to another - comes from my experience in New Orleans.

You have to be very flexible and understand as a director, especially as a writer/director, that you cannot hang onto stuff really hard. You have to be ready to accept those happy accidents and to anticipate that they are going to happen and capitalize on them.

Organisations with decision-making speed and imagination will thrive as nobody can claim to have a monopoly over creativity.

My existence is about making movies, so I've just got to rock and roll with the punches. You want to make movies on telephones, I'm there.