Quotes About Authenticity

I try to be the best version of me that I can be, whether it's acting or on a personal level.

In the case of 'The Deep,' because of the people involved, the talent and the real lives of people who died, I wanted to make the most honest film I could. And sometimes that's the best way to go: Just make the best version of the film you can.

When I think of my version of a role model, it's not about being the perfect Samaritan; it's just being out there and being honest and happily imperfect.

As I have had to meet different challenges, I realize I am coming into myself, and whatever I'm wearing is another chance for me to explore a new version of myself.

I've had friends of mine say, like, they're tired of 'gayface,' and I was like, 'What's gayface?' They were like, 'It's the gay version of blackface: like, come in and be more effeminate.'

Almost every day, people will say to me some version of, 'You're so much nicer in real life.' I guess I come across as not nice.

I want to be free to be any version of me I feel like being. I don't want to be McDonald's that serves the same food every time.

Don't do anyone else's version of a hit song - it's gonna sound terrible. You just have to do what you do well and crank it up to 11.

I'm not trying to be the younger, blonder version of anyone. I'm trying to be Tomi.

Making the decision to embrace or to shun makeup is one that should be contingent on nothing more, nothing less, than doing what makes you feel like the best version of yourself.

I think once 'Empire' hit, there was a lot of bad black TV that followed, because we work in the business of hit-seekers and copycats, so they're like, 'Oh this is a show about black people; this is about music, OK let's do a version of that.' And, of course, it doesn't work because it's not organic.

Be You, Live Civil was a tour that I started, and it's just always something that I've been to myself. 'Be you, live civil' is like 'live my life.' That was my short version of saying to live my life.

The version of me on the Internet, it's not me. It's one portion.

For me, there's no dichotomy between being shy or a performer, because I think it's more a way of slightly presenting a version of things to the world.

I don't relate to people that look like me. I find it deeply unsatisfying to play a version of myself. It was something I had to figure out really early on, when I was at RADA, because I was being cast, over and over again, as the young, virginal thing. When I left RADA, I was on an absolute mission to never wear make-up.

Next time you look in the mirror, close your eyes and ask yourself when you feel like the best version of you. When you open them, act on that.

If people are hiding their sexuality, they don't really get their full selves, so you can sometimes feel like you're presenting sort of like a fogged version of yourself.

I probably looked pretty conventionally successful as a 24-year-old getting paid $125,000 a year, plus bonus, wearing suits, and living in a Manhattan apartment. But I hated my job, I didn't admire the people I was working with, and I felt that I was becoming a smaller, less imaginative, less risk-taking, less likable version of myself.

People who are deceptive themselves have a really good ear for deception. They know when somebody's telling the truth or not, and so one of the ways around that is to always be telling the truth - or some version of it.

I don't want to read about the fabricated version of someone's life. I want to know what haunts you, what are you ashamed of, what embarrasses you, what do you wish was different?

I love many realists but very strongly resist the notion that realism presents a less stylized, more authentic version of the world.

Being authentic is important to me, and I am not going to present this fluff, fake, sanitized version of myself that doesn't reflect who I am or what my passions and interests are.

When anyone pitches me - and I've heard it a million times: 'It's the black Seinfeld,' or, 'It's the new version of something that's already been successful' - I immediately shut it off. I won't ever entertain doing 'the new version of such-and-such.'

I think the greatest of people that have ever been in society, they were never versions of someone else. They were themselves.