A Quote by Patti Harrison

Now, I don't know if we're at a place where we can see a nuanced transgender villain, because unless it can be written in a way that their transness is not the cause of them being evil, I don't think a lot of cis screenwriters are willing to do that. It's all through their lens of assumptions.
A lot of actors say that no villain wants to be a villain, generally. They don't might being evil, maybe, but they have an agenda that they can justify. Otherwise, a little bit of that tension goes, if you're just a villain and everyone hates you because you're mean.
What's infuriating is when cis people think celebrating me is celebrating transness.
My mission is to change the way people see the world. Everybody has a perspective or a lens they see things through, and hopefully I can adjust that lens or change that lens so that they see things from a different perspective, a different lens.
You carry that through and adapt it to a camera lens, but you're quite right, you cannot be sure of what an audience is going to do. You don't know what's going to happen to the piece you're doing anyway. You don't know how it's going to be edited. There are a lot more unknowns in cinema. But that you have to readily accept. That's when, I think, you have to forget about intellect, to a degree. Intuition is very important when you're working with a lens, I believe, for what the lens is doing, too.
I get nervous when I do print interviews because I know that whatever I say is going to be shown through the lens of whomever I'm talking to. So I've read a lot of different versions of myself - and all of them are true because it's all opinion and they're as accurate as it can ever be. But I don't think that I've been deft at hiding parts of my personality.
I'm no reporter. That's for the man with a suit and tie. I'm just relating to my people the best way I know, bringing them what they know and what they see out on the streets. I'm bringing it to them in a musical way, through a way of partying rather than violence. Now they can party their way through their problems.
I find I am more interested in the villain-type roles because they can be so much more complex than just the villain. I don't think anybody sees them as evil per se. They show how close we are to one another. It's an untapped area of art. And I think, physically, I'm not going to play the hero.
It's not a cis-man becoming a cis-woman. It's a trans person just being who they want to be. This is how I've always felt, and this is who I've always been. But so much focus is put on the transition or the change because it's so visible. But that's not even what it is... That's who that person's been and who they are now.
I wouldn't say I see things visually first, but what I do think is important, for a lot of screenwriters, is to not just think about the words on the page, but also the world as a whole and the vibe of the movie, rather than a sequence of scenes written on the page.
I know, if anyone does - all research workers know - how much is missed that really matters because reports have to be written in officialese. They have to be, because a lot of us can't take anything seriously unless you make it dull for them.
I think that focusing all experiences through the lens of the Internet is an example of not being able to see history through the eyes of others, to be so enamored of one's present time that one cannot see that the world was once elsewise and was not about you.
I think what's exciting about playing a villain - particularly a villain who's totally unapologetic about their evil intentions - is that it's not anything remotely like what you get to do in real life. You're never allowed to be evil and not feel bad about it afterwards, let alone be evil, period.
There are a lot of people that never thought I was going to be the guy that I am now. Now when I see them, it's fun to see how people are. I don't think they're being fake. I think now they just see me from a different eye.
We have never seen the isolation of the rich to the degree that we see it now. They're global. They travel all over the world. They're not in any way - it seems to me - committed to any one place. So it's easy for them to say, "We don't see this. We don't see poverty. We don't think it's that bad. We think wealth is really being distributed in ways that are fair."
There's a lot of people talking about elitism and all of that.Yes, I went to Princeton and Harvard, but the lens through which I see the world is the lens that I grew up with. I am the product of a working class upbringing.
When you're younger you have a lot of ideas and you're probably more insecure, all those things. I work with young actors now and I see their insecurities and I make fun of them. I don't make fun of them but I make them laugh, because I know what they're going through. When you get older you think 'It's only a movie after all, it's not brain surgery.'
This site uses cookies to ensure you get the best experience. More info...
Got it!