Top 84 Quotes & Sayings by Daveed Diggs
Explore popular quotes and sayings by an American actor Daveed Diggs.
Last updated on September 17, 2024.
At some point, I'll do more McDonald's commercials if I have to.
To be rapping in a musical on Broadway is just - that sentence doesn't make any sense in my brain.
I liked being on stage because it gave me a reason to be around people. The other great thing about acting is it allows you to imagine circumstances different from your own. I was a poor Bay Area kid getting to pretend to be a Russian aristocrat.
Being multiracial has allowed me to feel comfortable walking in all different circles.
My parents are not together, but they were both always around.
The act of being nice to somebody at Starbucks is actually a huge thing. It's a real change you can effect in somebody's life every day.
That's the great thing about being a teenager. You think you're a genius.
To walk into a casting room full of people who look like you is a crazy thing. What is the thing that necessitates all of us having the exact same shade of skin and having the same hair? What about this deodorant commercial needs that?
The tricky thing about fast raps is not really the delivery of them; it's the writing of them, with consonants close enough together that you don't trip up over them.
Writing rap songs is about flow, about one word blending seamlessly into the next and creating a thing that is possible to perform in a way that feels natural.
As a kid, I was very shy.
I was really aware, even while it was happening, that the discovery of arts education in my life sort of saved my life.
I was so stressed, man. When I was 17, I was so worried about what the hell was going to happen.
Neither of my parents live in Oakland anymore. They both got priced out.
I think this idea of a big break is a lie.
I felt so loved and taken care of, and that's a huge part of the reason I'm able to do what I do.
I think people understand I'm not actually the real Thomas Jefferson.
I feel like, anytime I'm onstage, I tend to feel very connected with people in the audience or with the sort of heartbeat or tempo of the audience.
Writing is writing. It is all about telling stories, and I've been doing that for so long, in all realms, that it all feels like the same thing to me anyway.
I'm aware that not everybody gets that feeling of ease walking through the world that I have.
I went to Hebrew school but opted out of a bar mitzvah.
I've been sort of gentrification-obsessed. Right before I left Oakland in 2012, I was feeling it. Now I go back sporadically, and the change is drastic.
I'm fascinated with the regionality of rap music.
History is about who tells it.
As a kid, you don't have a ton of spaces where you are honored, where what you think is honored and what you say is revered.
Acting is about finding truth and finding the way to convey the truth.
The way we make history exciting to learn about is by breaking down the barriers that are already set up between these people.
There's no reason for somebody who's good at writing rap to be good at freestyling. They're different parts of your brain. You can develop both skills. I'm a much better writer.
There's a lot of spaces that care about what kids are buying. There are a lot of spaces that care about what kids are watching. But there aren't a lot of spaces that care about what kids are saying.
As more doors open for me, I try to always bring people who I know through.
If you do enough rap shows, you get a pretty good sense of an audience. You start to develop this sense of what a feeling of a room or a group is.
Daveed Diggs is a very nervous person.
I get excited to create things that don't exist in the same world as 'Hamilton' because that world is really well done and doesn't need me to inform it anymore.
It wasn't until I got out in the world and started worked professionally when I realized that the people I admired were the ones who had taken the little snippets of what they learned that worked for them - and strung them together in their own technique.
I love that 'Black-ish' is a pretty traditional sitcom, structurally. It functions like the sitcoms from the '80s and '90s that I grew up with.
Recording vocals has the same kind of physical demands as you experience a lot in theater work.
I'm from the Bay Area, so I know a lot about granola.
I think rappers spend a lot of time trying to figure out what is new. 'How can I say this in a way that no one has ever said it before?'
I majored in theater. I did plays. But musicals were not my thing.
Being with a bunch of people who never take a day off means that you're not taking a day off.
My favorite Prince album is 'Sign o' the Times.'
I sort of have this feeling about change in general. We can make baby steps on a macro level. We can try to shift policy, voting and changing who's in office. But we can make huge, sweeping changes on a personal level and in your immediate circle, or just the people around you.
Often, the people I'm working with on music are separate from the rest of my life.
I have a recognizable silhouette.
Oftentimes, it feels like we spend so much of our life waiting to make art, waiting for somebody to let us do something. You don't really have to do that. You can make it all the time. And 99 percent of the time, it's not going to be a big deal on a global scale. But 100 percent of the time, it's going to make you feel amazing.
If a project feels good to you, say yes. And do it with everything that you have and hope that the outcome is good.
The reason you write something that is exciting and visceral is to force people to hear what you have to say, especially if you're in any kind of marginalized community where people don't want to listen. You have to come up with tricks to make them listen.
It's funny because as a rapper, there is - and this is something that Clipping challenges all the time - there is this idea about authenticity as a rapper, in the fact that you rap things that are yours. That's not what doing a play is. You're interpreting somebody else's words.
The fact that I got to do the 'Hamilton' BET Cypher is a totally crazy thing because I've watched the BET Cyphers since it started. I've seen every one. I study them. Because I'm a rapper. It's what you do.
What writing a poem really does - and what figuring how to perform effectively really does - is forces people to listen to you. It frames your thoughts in such a way that grabs people's attentions and forces them to hear the things that you're actually saying.
I have this thing. I can rap really fast. I can rap really, really fast. It's a thing I'm good at and I've trained myself to do; it's a thing I do in the Bay Area.
That's the great thing about how 'SVU' works. They work with so many Broadway actors, they are very used to getting us out in time for the show.
I make the energy to go out. You can't let the Broadway schedule run you.
My mom is a white Jewish lady, and my dad is black. The cultures never seemed separate - I had a lot of mixed friends. When I was young, I identified with being Jewish, but I embraced my dad's side, too.
I didn't aspire to be on Broadway.
Being an emcee onstage is mostly about crowd control, about monitoring energy levels.
I can jump really high, yeah. I'm proud of that. I'll take it.
I think it's important that your work is in conversation with artists in your community.
I have all of Kendrick Lamar on vinyl.
The fact that rap has a strict meter and stays to a click means that you have to make your thoughts concise.
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