Top 116 Quotes & Sayings by John Cameron Mitchell - Page 2

I sometimes buy albums that I don't like now, but that I know I will like. Coming out was the same thing. In high school, I thought, 'I know I'm going to have to deal with this, but I'm not confident enough now.' But when I finally did, my whole life changed.

Nothing is a calling card. Everything is what you do. If you do it in order to get somewhere else, you're not actually doing it. If you're thinking, 'What is the weird thing I want to make with my friends?' money and other things will come later.

'Hedwig' is unabashedly analog.

Acceptance and assimilation, you know, breeds mediocrity and perhaps an even more sheep-like conformism in terms of what kind of music you're supposed to listen to if you're gay... What are you supposed to look like? What's your body supposed to look like?

Nowadays, the term 'selling out' doesn't exist anymore because everyone is trying to make a living.

My mom was a little weepy. My dad was very logical about it. Once they realized you can't change, they wanted to know that you can be happy and be gay. Once they realized that, they were very cool about it.

Isn't it funny - why is it called a tennis bracelet? It doesn't seem very tennis, does it?

I studied meditation, knowing it would be a huge new calming skill.

I really want as many people as possible to relate to something, without compromising or dumbing down.

I've always liked a good joke that everybody can laugh at.

I have a weird propensity to know what's going to happen in the future.

I would love for 'Hedwig' to be in every tiny shopping mall so every freakish kid like I was can have a broadening experience.

Getting the blood moving through your body does do wonders for your complexion.

You get all these French directors who have all these pretty, vacuous stars of their movies - from Jean Seberg on - who have become iconic but were never really good actors.

You're on Facebook, and you're supposed to know your sexual orientation at 13... Nobody really knows what's going on at that time, and people seem to... know stuff, or they have to act like they do, and they make decisions before they really need to.

Obviously, when you get into larger budgets, you have less of that freedom, and I just - I'm not a person that tends to make stories for those larger budgets. To me, it's not much fun to have that kind of pressure.

London is the English-speaking theatre capital.

You can make serious pop, you know? There was a time when the best movies were the most popular, and I keep thinking that can happen again.

What's interesting is that some of the things I'm interested in talking about is a story which has to do with the second half of your life, which can be told through Hedwig's voice because she's older. If the timeline is consistent, she's as old as me.

I've obviously always been aware of actor-oriented films, being an actor. Altman and Cassavetes were really strong. And then I realized their structures were quite fascinating, too.

New York is so unique, and you are not always encouraged to consider the people in the city your neighbors because of the fast pace and surface anonymity.

I'm not interested in replicating 'Hedwig' like a virus.

I actually came out the year that AIDS hit the front pages. So there was this mixed feeling about it - excitement that life's finally begun, but it was completely tied up with mortality and danger and politics.

I like all kinds of input.

There are a lot of silly projects out there.

'Hedwig' is not autobiographical, but what she goes through is clearly a big metaphor. She doesn't want to be what she is, but she comes to an understanding that what happened to her has actually made her whole.

Compared to other liberal cities like San Francisco and Amsterdam, New Yorkers are always trying to do something, make art or love or money or whatever, and they have this phobia about standing still.

I don't regret anything, because I feel better every year, and if I'd done something different, maybe I wouldn't. I'm more of a whole person, the older I get.

The people that were most interesting were always questioning the status quo.

I thought, 'O.K., if I'm a valuable person and an independent entity, then I don't have to worry about what people think of me. I can reach out now.'

I did take comfort in the vespers and compline. I might have become a monk if I hadn't come out.

I think it helped me like myself more, playing Hedwig.

I come from the theater, and there is a real collaborative history there.

I remember being afraid of doing drag when I was younger because I didn't really like my feminine side - most gay guys at some point are told that that's the worst part of you, so that becomes a negative thing.

Some people end up becoming just a conservator of the one thing they did and making sure they get their merch out and all that.

I like the fact that it's like The Ramones. You just have to change your name, and you're a Ramone. You just have to put the wig on, and you're Hedwig. Women have played it. Gay men, straight men, you know.

There's something cool about being a stealth classic.

Doing 'Hedwig' totally contributed to my acceptance of myself.

Drag is a little scary, especially for a gay man who's not comfortable with his feminine side.

I have seen so few films in which the sex felt really respected by the filmmaker. Hollywood too often shies away from it or makes adolescent jokes about it... Sex is only connected to the negative because people are scared of it.

I love when a director says, "I don't know."

Ibsen, Chekhov, Shakespeare, and Beckett to me are the most revolutionary.

Nature is a series of murders.

Kids' literature now is dystopian, you know.

I feel like a goddamn hippie, I tell you.

If there's anything I know about directing, it's how to make actors comfortable. It's where I started and it's what I know, and it's what I love. I like when the actors are really partners and I want them to be excited and I want them to surprise me. I don't want them to be puzzle pieces.

There is such a reluctance to address sex as an inherent part of the human experience in this country... The true perversion to me is crushing it and hiding it.

I love British female directors lately.

It seems like there'd be no Donald Trump without the internet, first of all. He's a tweeter, which is basically just a bullhorn.

It's just odd that something as essential in life as sex has been flattened out in mainstream cinema - and in art cinema. Even in art movies, sex always seems to be treated negatively. Why does it always end in disaster?

The bigger the budget, the more trouble there is.

We spend so much of our early lives trying to figure out who we really are. And we spend the rest of our lives preparing ourselves to let it go.

I know what it's like to audition, so it's important that everybody who auditions, even if I know right off they're not right for it, has a good experience. So I'll never just have someone do one pass at it and say "Thank you".

I spent a lot of time with making sure everyone felt wanted.

I always wonder about psychopaths, just because they have no empathy, does that necessarily mean they enjoy being cruel? Because we all know people who seem to have no empathy that we work with; they're not necessarily cruel.

I'm going to go wherever I'm needed.