Quotes About Authenticity

As first and foremost a character actor, I've always resisted the temptation to cure any of the people I've played or make them lovable in any way; you've just got to celebrate them for what they are.

I resist the temptation to curate my apartment.

I think it's easier to be cynical. I think the temptation, often, among writers is to write about anything other than real, true, deep feelings.

I have learned that as an artist, I cannot succumb to the temptation to please others.

A first kiss is hard to fake on screen. It's tempting to practice before you shoot, but why blow that natural awkwardness on a rehearsal? There's something so beautiful about it that can't be faked.

It's very tempting for certain generations to say, 'Well, I just want to be in a band, and I want to be a rock star,' or whatever. That's not what it's about. Firstly, you've got to be in it for the love and the passion that you have for the music, and then you take it from there.

You take somebody that cries their goddam eyes out over phoney stuff in the movies, and nine times out of ten they're mean bastards at heart.

If I was left to my own devices, you would see about ten T-shirts in rotation with maybe a few nice pairs of jeans - but I also like to look good. I like feeling really well put together, I just don't have the aptitude and the knowledge to do that.

Bonnaroo has kind of become the granddaddy of all American festivals. The thing I love about it most is that it wasn't born out of picking the top ten bands off the Billboard chart and creating a festival around it.

It never occurred to me that I needed to say that I was gay. I simply am. Anyone who knows me or who's been around me ten minutes knows it too.

In a girl I look for honesty above all, someone who I can carry on a conversation with, someone who has a good sense of humor, someone who's true to herself, and to top it, someone who can get ready for a date in less than ten minutes.

If I had made another 'Maxinquaye,' I'd have had ten times as much success. I ain't going down that path, because that way you're totally controlled by people around you. I don't want to be controlled.

When I look at 'Napoleon Dynamite's style I'm reminded of how I spoke when I was an eight-year-old boy. It was just like capturing the essence of, 'Duh!' It was just like the stuff that I would say when I was like eight, nine, ten years old.

I'd play the same character for ten years if the words and the moments that I'm playing are authentic.

For the first ten years of my career, I felt suffocated. People constantly stood over me while I tried to create. And in 2009, I hit rock bottom. I couldn't find myself because I was looking to be defined by the music industry or by being number one on the Billboard charts.

For the first ten years of my career, or up to the point I did 'Local Hero,' I was always trying to be somebody else as an actor.

My tenacity and determination to be true to the person I had become were sacrosanct.

Once you get rid of the idea that you must please other people before you please yourself, and you begin to follow your own instincts - only then can you be successful. You become more satisfied, and when you are, other people will tend to be satisfied by what you do.

Bands like Culture Club and artists like me, you tend to concentrate on the live arena because that's where you can be your most authentic. That's where you have the most power.

People who have picture-perfect upbringings and lives tend not to be funny. I don't think they write from a position of pain.

The music industry is a world of smoke and mirrors: they tell you exactly what they think you want to hear. And they are bare-faced lying. I tend to stay away from that.

People in day-to-day life tend to skim the surface of things and be polite and careful, and that's not the language I speak. I like talking about feelings, fears and memories, anguish and joy, and I find it in music.

As an actor, you tend to have to be a bit of a people-pleaser, and I think that I just don't really care about that so much any more.

I have no qualms: no shame, no guilt, no embarrassment. I tend to act out a lot.