Knowing record labels and knowing the kinds of things they would object to-they just object to everything that's interesting.
I left Motown because of the regime of people who were there.
One consistent good thing I can say about the music industry is that at least I can make music freely now, and I don't have to do it when I'm off of a nine to five shift or something.
I find there aren't that many options as an actor.
I wanted to stay independent because I figured there was no way I was going to be able to have control to create the type of music I want. I was basically ignoring a lot of labels.
Great actors help. Every project is different. Sometimes it's completely open, and I've been able to cast who I've wanted. And then sometimes people want a certain kind of actor.
The action star's life is very short. Back in Asia, I can do whatever I want to do. I'm the producer, I'm the director, I can do so many things, but in Hollywood any time I present a script they say: "No, no, no, Rush Hour 3, Rush Hour 4."
The main problem is that the Hollywood system has already made the film before the director shoots a single frame.
I don't suffer the decisions the studio world makes.
Actors are limited by their appearance and while it has cost me some roles, it has got me some very important roles too.
There's so many characters they [studios] are not letting me play. And I thought, "Why don't you just go produce it yourself?".
Career is a mindset. The wrong mindset. Career is linear. Especially when you are trapped in the TV or film world. The next thing you do has always got to be bigger, or it is perceived as a failure.
I worked with fantastic actors, fantastic directors. People I would never otherwise have met. Was I limited? Yes. Did I use it as I could have? No. But I was always ambivalent about Hollywood and what I wanted. And ambivalence in our business is no good for success.
We're finding a third way for biologists to change the world. It's very hard to change the world when the only directions available in biology are academia and the pharmaceutical industry.
It'd be very difficult to cast me as a ballet dancer. Everybody is, in some sense, controlled by their size and their gender. I'm not going to be allowed to play the part that Denzel Washington plays.
A lot of times black actors get stuck in a box. They're up against a lot of limitations for the kind of films that they get approached about. It's easy to get stuck in a box and just be approached about nothing but urban films.
The Tamil industry, while being better than all the other film industries when it comes to treating female actors, is still dominated by men. So, I can only work within the space offered to heroines, and I think I am doing that.
We are in an industry where, unfortunately, there is very limited scope for female-oriented roles. If we don't have options, how can we pick and choose roles?
I never do anything to strictly satisfy a fickle, ever-changing commercial world. I do the music I like to play. It's the only way I feel comfortable existing in the industry.
When a record company looks at me I'm very hard to market, I don't really fit anywhere, It's hard to get me on the air, and I'm hard to demography, but! because of that I'm not subject to trends like you pointed out.
You can't break through Hollywood formulaic points of view. I've tried, and I think I was more successful than anybody at doing it.
I didn't want to play by what rules are in Hollywood.
There just aren't many little guys who are good actors. They don't get the training; they don't go to RADA. There just aren't the parts for dwarfs, and if you like it or not, you're typecast as a dwarf.
I was tired of doing collections, tired of doing runway shows... there was just so much wasted time and energy doing all the runway product and all the filler product. We also decided not to do wholesale, which gives me a lot of freedom; I can basically do what I want and I don't need to fit into any department in a store.
The industry confines us in boxes, but we have to prove that we are women of substance.
