Creative Compromise Quotes

I have cut four albums so far, and all of them have been trendsetters and commercially successful. I believe that once you start taking art in commercial terms, it ceases to be art.

I don't really mind not being a part of a film - because if there is no part for me, I will never force myself upon a film. I feel like it's just a distraction. If it is not organically incorporated into the story, it just feels like a stupid appearance, like a sort of wink. I hate that.

I know how to make a record that commercial radio or Triple J will smash now... It's kind of hard to stay true and write what you would write if you didn't have that in your head. Because I know I can get way more airplay and get this much bigger... and that's what I'm trying to avoid doing. Trying to avoid the poisons of success.

It took five years to get 'Parental Guidance' made, and it was a fight every second.

When looking at any significant work of art, remember that a more significant one probably has had to be sacrificed.

When any young director gets hired by a studio to do a $125 million film based on a preexisting piece of intellectual property, they're climbing into the meat grinder. And what you're coming out with on the other side is a generic, heavily studio-controlled pile of garbage that ends up on the side of Burger King wrappers.

Here's the way Static-X has always worked: I write all the songs by myself - totally and completely by myself - I give demos to the other guys, and then they add their parts to it, and then we argue about stuff and compromise and it turns out being Static-X.

The challenge artists face today is whether to be an underground, unheard genius, or to dilute their art for the marketplace.

You always have to appeal to your audience. You always have to consider how well your project will do in terms of admissions. I abandoned many stories because of that. But I don't get too down about it. It's something I accepted from the time I decided to work in films.

Working on films where the money's more important than the creativity, I just get a bit freaked out by that. I just don't feel comfortable.

Musicians are all about celebrity first and foremost, and I just can't do it. The second any sort of popularity contest comes into the picture, I have to walk in the other direction. These people are sociopaths.

One of the big struggles for an actor is sometimes you have to take work that you don't necessarily want to do so you can pay rent.

When you're a rapper, just a rapper, you have to kind of settle for whatever comes your way - if a beat is hot, you wanna rap on it, period.

I know, as an actor, you have to negotiate, but I can't handle the whole idea that art and commerce are synonymous. It drives me nuts.

What happens with artists, or people who start off doing things for the right reasons, is that you slowly start to paint yourself into a corner by doing what people outside of the creative world are asking you to do, and I think that's antithetical to being an artist.

I'd much rather fail than do something like 'The Chorus Line' movie, sanitized and Hollywoodized.

I don't hate the music, but I hate the process. When I look at it, I don't see song titles and artwork, I see the fight - I see the emotions, the blood, sweat and tears. There are a couple of songs on there that I love; but 'Lasers' is a little bit of what you love, a little bit of what you like, and a lot of what you had to do.

When you make a movie, it's just a huge bureaucracy because movies cost so much money. Millions of people get involved, and pretty soon the creative idea gets tramped on and watered down or filtered through a huge system.

I'll always work with my collaborator in the room so I have a reaction on a note-by-note basis. I know in my gut when something works for me, and I'll fight for it, but I'm a very easy re-writer.

Indie rock is just as susceptible - if not more susceptible - to all the gross things about people becoming total ass clowns in music, and only worrying about money and image. I'm not interested in being a part of that.

They were worried we wouldn't get any radio play at all[ for "A Deal with God" ]. That's why it was changed [to "Running Up That Hill"].

Because many of the films I've made have had an intellectualedge, it's harder for me to lie. It's harder for me to go to peoplewith money and say I don't care about art, all I care about iscommerce; all I really want to do is make money.

In an ideal world, as a director, you usually wish you could do your own thing and not have to take anyone else's point of view into account, but occasionally you work with someone like Robyn, who brings a new set of ideas to the table, and the whole ends up much greater than the sum of the parts.

I could probably make more money if I did more commercial projects.

The key is you don't want to control the controlled stuff too much and you don't want to be too free flowing in uncontrolled situations. That can be a contentious issue with some directors. The joy of my career is I've gotten to work with great directors who get that balance.