Top 88 Quotes & Sayings by Ruth Negga
Explore popular quotes and sayings by an Ethiopian actress Ruth Negga.
Last updated on September 17, 2024.
I have not been aggressive in my pursuit of being a star. I've never had a plan. Maybe I need to be more aggressive, because it's quite tough!
I'm interested in the idea that we all start off as these lovely little babies with all this potential but that circumstances mean that we don't always live the life we should.
In many ways, playing a real person is slightly easier because you have a road map. When you're playing someone fictitious, there's myriad ways in. With a real person, there's boundaries, and that sometimes makes the work easier.
When you label someone 'up and coming' or 'the new breakout,' there's this kind of expectation. And I think, like I said before, it's very hard to live up to that expectation when you really don't have that much power as an actor - in terms of your career path and the timing.
I didn't become an actor to make money. And I didn't become an actor to be famous - though people always gasp if you say that, as if it's unfathomable that an actor doesn't want to be a star.
Bette Davis is my hero. I'm obsessed with her. I base everything I do on her.
I'm always very careful to say I'm Irish-Ethiopian because I feel Ethiopian and I look Ethiopian and I am Ethiopian. But there are 81 languages in Ethiopia, and I don't know any of them.
When you connect to someone on a human level, and you get to know about them, you can begin to love the things that make them different. That's when fear dissipates, and that's when we can live the life that we're all supposed to be living.
I was moved by the 'Lovings' story because of my own background as a mixed-race person.
My family very much adored me, and at school, I was an object of fascination.
I've always had sort of an interest in American history, full stop, and especially people who contributed to the civil rights struggle.
I like connecting with people, and that's what good art is: a point of connection. There's nothing better, on stage or on film.
Some people say to me, 'You don't sound very Irish.' It's because I have this tendency to iron out my accent: not because I'm ashamed of it but because it makes my life easier if I don't keep having to repeat myself.
I've always been very talkative, very chatty, quite hyperactive. I grew up with a lot of cousins, and most of them were boys. Four in particular and I were the demolition squad. Havoc.
I had a very peripatetic childhood, so I bounced around. Lived in Ethiopia until I was, like, three or four and then lived between Ireland and London.
I am not hugely famous; I am not a name. For me, it's not the size of the role, it's the material and the people you are working with.
When you connect to someone on a human level, and you get to know about them, you can begin to love the things that make them different.
People ask me where I'm from. I say Ireland, and they are like 'Really? You don't look Irish.' Then you have to explain... people are intrigued, but sometimes you think, 'Why do I have to tell my whole story every time I open my mouth?
The idea that you must treat actors a certain way in order to get a performance out of them kind of disturbs me, and it's disregarding what we do. Our job is to do our job.
I grew up in a lot of different places, so I pick up accents pretty quickly.
I become very territorial about my identity because it's been hijacked by so many people with their own projections.
History is written by the winners. My job as an artist is to speak up for those who might be perceived as the losers. Or those who can't shout.
I don't really know how strong someone is if they're compelled to a life of violence. Is that strong? No. That's damaged.
The god of theater laughs in your face at planning. You can't plan as an actor; there's no way, because so much of it is dependent on other people's choices and decisions that you're at the whim of fate, really.
I don't think I have ever thought of myself as a movie star. I think when I was about seven, I thought it must be lovely to have an Oscar. But the more involved you are in this business, the more that pretence disappears, and you really get to see what you love about it, and what I love is working.
We all have as much right to take up our space in the world as one another.
I don't like hobbies. I read and travel and see my friends before they disown me.
If people want to invade your privacy, they want to invade your privacy. I find it chilling, and I find it awful, and it makes me really nervous. It hasn't happened to me much, but when you have a taste of it, it's bitter.
When you work with directors who really love actors, who love their contribution, it feels amazing. But sometimes when you work with directors, you feel like you're in the way.
You can suffer for your art, and you can make your own self suffer for your art. You don't need anyone else to do it for you.
I grew up in an area of Ireland where there weren't many black or mixed-race children. But I never had any hassle; maybe I've blocked it out, but I don't think so.
I had quite a scattered childhood. I was Irish in London, because I had my secondary school education there. I never really fitted anywhere. I didn't feel it was a negative thing, and I was never made to feel different - I just knew I was.
My favorite film is 'All About Eve'.
I don't believe that directors need to essentially manipulate actors into doing things. You can suffer for your art, and you can make your own self suffer for your art. You don't need anyone else to do it for you. I work best when there's a safety trampoline of kindness.
My job as an artist is to speak up for those who might be perceived as the losers. Or those who can't shout. No wonder public-school people always get into politics or acting: they're taught to shout that much more loudly.
I've gone into auditions, and I think they have an assumption about me when they see my photo, and then I open my mouth, and they say, 'Where exactly are you from? And you were born in Ethiopia? But you're Irish, but you also kind of sound English. That's really strange.'
You know when you're a kid and you get to pick a movie every Friday? I watched everything. There's no particular genre that was appealing. I just loved the idea that you could dress up and play.
Women always have to have this soft, maternal, sort of - I don't know - moral center.
I trained, went to college, trained, and got a job. Then got another job. When I wasn't working I worked at a bar, then got another job.
I don't know why women aren't allowed to have the same sort of breadth and scope and flaws of men.
I think if we don't understand history, if we don't keep referring back to it, we become complacent. And complacency, as we all know, it leads to repeating history.
I love the Greeks. There's no messing around - it's all do or die with them.
What I have wanted to do is take roles that are unexpected for people who look like me. Roles that the establishment would say, 'Oh, she couldn't possibly be that.'
You don't come to see a Greek play and not want blood and gore and depth of feeling from your boots up.
The good thing about auditioning is that you get to test yourself and see if you can play this character - you're also auditioning yourself.
Ninety percent of my roles, I've had to fight for. It's only a really small percentage of people who get handed roles.
I know I've said it before in interviews, but the idea that all actors have their eye on some sort of prize - it being an Oscar, or fame, or whatever - not all actors I know are like that.
I use the term 'spine' for people when I think that they may seem on the surface sort of reticent, shy, self-deprecating, shying away from the spotlight. Quiet.
I think if you don't risk something in art, it's not really important.
I'm not in any rush to get anywhere. There's a pressure on actors to get somewhere before it's over. But everyone wants longevity, don't they? It's a career. Why be that flash-in-the-pan, taking every job out of worry it'll soon be over?
I don't like the term 'colour-blind' - because I don't want people to be blind to my colour.
Violence in film and television is an ongoing conversation, and I like eavesdropping on it, but I'm never sure what my opinion is. I like watching creative violence, but I don't know.
I didn't have that many black people in my life, so I had to sort of search them out. And I didn't grow up in America, but I identified as much with their writing about the black experience as I did with their writing about the human experience.
What's really important is the people, first of all. I like working with people who are kind, above all else. I don't really want to work with someone who will manipulate me. The idea that you must treat actors a certain way in order to get a performance out of them kind of disturbs me, and it's disregarding what we do. Our job is to do our job.
I've met loads of black and brown and various people who are well into comics.
I work best when there's a safety trampoline of kindness.
I'm not the most articulate person.
When I was a kid in Ireland, there were not very many black people. I was very much like the strange brown thing, intriguing and cute. I didn't experience racism there. The first time I did was in London. It was that moment that you realize you're black. A kind of lifting of the veil.
I auditioned for 'Loving' two years before we started shooting, so in the hopes that I would be playing Mildred, I watched it again. Also it's one of the best documentaries I've seen. I found this couple interminably fascinating; even if I didn't get the part, I just wanted to know more about them and their story.
Often, it's easier to play someone further away from you because it's clearer who they are. I think if you want to make a performance authentic, there are a certain amount of leaps of faith into the unknown that you have to take. Otherwise, you're not really risking anything.
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