Quotes About Authenticity

I don't need to be liked, but I need to be vital - on set or on stage - and I think that probably would be my advice: Stay vital. It's about saying 'no' and asking the tough questions and believing in yourself when no one else will, but you have to know the rules to break them.

My family is vital to me - just the sense of being surrounded by no pretension.

The most vital thing for an actor to deliver a great performance is to be honest to the role he or she is playing.

Early in my career, playing a character was vital. I had to be Thomas Penmanship because I couldn't be Tommaso because he is a shy kid, so I had to create an alter-ego.

To me, The Hard Way' is as raw and vital as anything I was doing when I first started only its way better!

Giving in to your ego is one of the oldest stories in the showbiz book. But so is figuring out how to stay vivid.

Everything is organic. I got the wordplay, I got the vocabulary to really, really rap.

A lot of people in film run around with a facade and use the right vocabulary and think they're mental giants, but it's very limiting.

I cannot stand Hollywood child performances. It just reeks of artifice, and it's weird that, for some reason, Hollywood feels they have to make their child characters smarter than adults, and suddenly kids have the vocabulary of a college grad.

I don't like people lying to me. I don't like people who don't return my calls. I don't like people who won't give me a straight answer. I don't like those kinds of people, and I've been vocal about it.

If you are recording, you are recording. I don't believe there is such a thing as a demo or a temporary vocal.

People often ask me how I developed my vocal sound, and the answer usually disappoints them: 'It's just the way I sound when I sing.'

Just with the basic one guitar, one piano and one vocal and an audience, I think that the intimacy comes through more. People feel much more connected to the song because there's nothing in the way, and I actually enjoy doing that.

I definitely don't subscribe to the theory that more instruments, or more vocal tracks, harmony, or double tracking the voice, is a good thing. People do their early albums very stripped down, then each album becomes bloated.

In many ways, I've chosen to be plain, almost too plain, too self-effacing. Like, if I record a vocal and I don't like the way it sounds, I would have them turn it up and take the reverb off it to make it as plain as possible.

I'm not so vocal. I try to get loud, but my voice will just crack or something.

At times, I can be vocal about what I think people want to hear as opposed to being vocal about what I really feel.

I'm not a fan of taking too long in the studio. I always do one vocal take and jump out of the control room, and people push me back in... It's a real turn-off to hear things that are too polished. I feel like I've almost fought for the right to be that kind of musician - we used to be on a major label, and now we're on an indie.

It's quite different to do a vocal performance, opposed to a performance where you are seen, because in some ways, you don't need to worry about what you look like - you don't have to sit in a makeup chair for a long time!

I'm always vocal about people being unique and different in hip-hop.

It is kind of easy for me to speak out. Just because I am very vocal in my music about a lot of different emotions, like anger, and normally stuff that people would hide, I'm okay with as a woman.

I can do the vocal acrobatics but I really try not to. I've always been drawn to singers who sing it like it is, pure, straight down the line: Ella Fitzgerald, Patti Smith, Carole King. Simplicity is really important to me.

I'm someone who has always believed in being extremely vocal about my thoughts, and I'm definitely not someone who's afraid to speak her mind.

When we're upset, our vocal cords tighten and we can't speak. And when I lie - well, I can't lie, because the same thing happens - everyone who knows me knows that when I start squeaking, I've started lying.