Quotes About Authenticity

When you're in the position I'm in, you have two options: you can either shut yourself off from everybody, from the world, and not live a full life. Or you welcome everybody into your life and occasionally somebody will try to take advantage.

I feel very fortunate to be an actor on a network whose tag line is 'Characters Welcome' and not 'Procedurals Welcome.'

Most of the performances I see on TV and in movies are so self-conscious and overacted. I would think a natural actress would be welcome.

I'm not against making new fans, but I'm not going to go out of my way to pander to someone and try to make them like me; that's not who we are. It's not as if we're fighting to find an audience - we have our audience, and anybody else is definitely welcome.

When a person finally has the courage to say, 'This is who I am,' and society is not there to welcome them with open arms, it is so tragic.

Welcome to your reality check - social media is not your friend, your friends are your 'friends'; invest in them, trust me.

I would never stay under circumstances where I felt I was a figurehead and might look good in your team media guide. I don't want to be that. I do want to contribute, and if I don't contribute, I'll walk away from it. If I don't feel welcomed, I'll walk away from it.

They welcomed me here in Orlando and wanted me to just be me.

There was a time when I was knocking on doors and concerned with being recognized in dominant culture. I've found a space where the terrain is different, where I'm embraced by people like me, and where I'm building new ways of doing things, as opposed to trying to insert myself in a place that might not be welcoming.

I always say: To be well dressed you must be well naked.

Well, to be frank I like natural beauty. Not artificial.

We might as well be true with ourselves.

People can hate on you for doing what it is that makes you happy, but ultimately, it has to belong to you. It shouldn't matter what anyone else thinks. Life is not easy. The road to happiness is not a path well trotted. You have to find your own path to enlightenment.

It is better to do one's own duty, however defective it may be, than to follow the duty of another, however well one may perform it. He who does his duty as his own nature reveals it, never sins.

Well, there's this culture on Instagram where everyone uses filters and lighting, or people smooth their skin out. It's this weird thing. We all know it's not real and we all complain about it, yet we all do it.

Well, I ain't even gonna lie I used to wear fake jewelry when I was coming up, like trying to get on. But I just understood that you had to have that image as a rapper, as an artist, just to have the attention.

The tricky thing becomes: Do you know yourself well enough to then portray that on screen? And for me, I find that really hard. I'd rather hide behind accents and funny walks.

You can work for other people and still be a #GIRLBOSS; it's more about a state of mind and knowing yourself well enough to know when you're making decisions for yourself or because the world expects them of you. And guess what? It's okay to do that sometimes, too.

Everybody you work with has their own voice, and if you do your job well enough, even their closest friends or their partner of 40 years isn't going to recognise the fingerprints of a ghostwriter.

I think I had a lot of fear, even when I was really young, that I was going to be seen as something that I didn't want to be. I didn't really know how to be myself well enough to be comfortable being someone else.

I think the fact that I'm so well known to be gay makes it very difficult to have a convincing relationship with a woman on screen. It wouldn't be at all difficult for me to kiss a woman - I'll kiss a frog if you like.

Well-being is how I feel in my skin, not about how other people are looking at me and what they see... it's what I feel like.

When I was a child, I did always feel that people were hiding things, and that they weren't expressing their true feelings. When adults are too complicated, and cover their emotions with layers of well-intentioned subterfuge, the child isn't seeing reality clearly enough and gets upset.

It's nice to sort of walk in and at least create the illusion that you are, or your character is, a well-rounded human being, a complete person. Especially when you're playing these impressive, high-functioning professionals. You feel like you have to come in sort of guns blazing.