Quotes from John Cameron Mitchell

Isn't it funny - why is it called a tennis bracelet? It doesn't seem very tennis, does it?

Nowadays, the term 'selling out' doesn't exist anymore because everyone is trying to make a living.

'Hedwig' isn't particularly based on me, but I think that it is autobiographical in terms of emotion.

I've seen things change and people forget: the history of Berlin, the history of queer struggle, the history of AIDS, the history of New York changing from an artistic powerhouse to more of a financial one now.

Some people end up becoming just a conservator of the one thing they did and making sure they get their merch out and all that.

I went to theater school at Northwestern, and I was quite conservative. Reagan at the time seemed quite revolutionary, or at least a rock star: He was radical and kind of punk rock.

I realized that theater was the perfect thing for me, in short bursts of intense community building.

The first rock stars were incredibly theatrical. Little Richard and Chuck Berry and Elvis Presley - they were theater artists.

I guess historically, drag queens were imitating movie stars and luminaries. It's kind of nice to have a movie star imitating a drag queen.

I remember my girlfriend dropped me for the guy I thought was really cute.

I think as far as themes, 'Hedwig' is about what music meant to you as a kid and how rock n' roll can save you; that is definitely part of it.

The best things happen in the dark.

Bob Fosse, even though he wasn't gay. He was certainly queer and had a huge effect on the 'Hedwig' film, as did Hal Ashby and Robert Altman, who had a weird butch queer feeling about him. His films almost flirted with camp but in an extremely realistic acting way.

I actually came out the year that AIDS hit the front pages. So there was this mixed feeling about it - excitement that life's finally begun, but it was completely tied up with mortality and danger and politics.

We need punk now; we need it more than ever. We need rebellion by youth.

Our feet are planted in the real world, but we dance with angels and ghosts.

What's interesting is that some of the things I'm interested in talking about is a story which has to do with the second half of your life, which can be told through Hedwig's voice because she's older. If the timeline is consistent, she's as old as me.

I would love for 'Hedwig' to be in every tiny shopping mall so every freakish kid like I was can have a broadening experience.

I don't regret anything, because I feel better every year, and if I'd done something different, maybe I wouldn't. I'm more of a whole person, the older I get.

I was brought up very Catholic, and the character of Tommy Gnosis got his name from there.

I always think that in some way, art is the best tool we have to prepare for death. It's like a sculpture that you can interpret differently every time you look at it.

I certainly wanted Hedwig's world to be one where identification and categories are fluid, changing, and confusing, as they are, really, in life.

I quickly found that I didn't really fit into 'gay culture,' as identified by many gay people, and that it can be just as confining as straight culture, not least in the way that bisexual people are told that 'they can't make up their mind.'

I am just touched at how strongly the real Hed-heads feel. It feels different from other kinds of devotees; maybe it's the way I felt with certain bands when I was a kid. It feels like a band more than a play.