Music and dance influence my style in a lot of ways. Sometimes I go off to work dressed up like I'm going to hit the stage and perform.
I'm an entertainer. I get up on stage and I try to make people enjoy my music, and that political arena - I'm going to stay out of it, right out.
There is no 'perfect' in music. If I ever came off the stage and felt it could not be better, it would then be time to quit.
Mainstream media's representation, or its guerrilla decontextualization, of black men's lives in particular can set the stage for erroneous assumptions capable of damaging an individual or a nation.
It goes back to a style of moviemaking I remember seeing as a child, in movies like The Man With The Golden Arm, which I think was shot all on a sound stage.
As for radio and movies, I like the movies better, although the work is much harder. The cinema has microphone technique, staging, and glamour all wrapped up into one.
In my most psychotic stages, I imagine myself chewing on sidewalks and bulging and swallowing sunlight and clouds.
I'm actually sometimes nervous right before a performance, but as soon as I'm on the stage I'm like, 'okay, we're gonna rock this baby.'
There is also something called the Legislature. There is something called the press. There is something called people. These are all different players on the stage.
Juilliard definitely emphasizes the theater. They don't train - at all really - for film acting. It's mostly process-oriented, pretty much for the stage.
An actor is an actor is an actor. The less personality an actor has off stage the better. A blank canvas on which to draw the characters he plays.
I have always used emotion as a writing tool. That goes back to me being on the stage.
When you're used to seeing someone being coldly efficient on court and suddenly they go on stage and into your world - it's fascinating.
I'd really been interested in opera when I was about 16, and I really like staging them.
You can't skip any stage of your life, it's all part of the molding process into a better you
I loved being on stage with heroes of mine, like Gregg Edelman and Jimmy Walton, and the lovely Chita Rivera and Stephanie J. Block.
I began to work the stage and get the audience into it. I also learned how to have fun out there. It is something I will never forget.
On stage, the audience watches from a fixed viewpoint and the director cannot retake something he doesn't like. It has to work straight through.
What I learned as an actor was the only way you could really do August Wilson's work, you had to leave an ounce of your essence on that stage,... Otherwise it was impossible.
If you don't have a certain amount of stage fright, then it's not going to be that interesting. It's not going to have the inner vibration. I think screen work needs inner vibration.
I mean, the only thing that matters to me is getting to the work - getting to do the work. And I don't really care where it is: whether it's on stage or on television or in film.
