A Quote by Ainsley Harriott

Shouting on TV feels like it almost gives viewers licence to do it in real life. — © Ainsley Harriott
Shouting on TV feels like it almost gives viewers licence to do it in real life.
I was joking the other day about how my real life feels like a TV show, and my TV life feels real - because, to be on Thursday nights on NBC, which is what I grew up with, has been such a big part of inspiring me. To be part of that tradition is really completely surreal, and I'm so grateful.
Obviously, the BBC is funded by licence-payers. If you are paying for a TV licence, when you see what people are paid, then you know you're funding that.
The TV licence people just can't believe we don't have a television. I'm a bolshie git. I shout at them things like, 'I don't need TV, I'm an intellectual.'
It feels like breaking rules is almost a given now on TV.
Boxing's a sport that gives you licence to act like an idiot, I think.
I have to admit to not being the greatest technician, but stop motion animation gives me licence to create machines that wouldn't otherwise be possible - inventions that seem real and actually work.
If you sit in on a film class with students, their big complaint is "That's not like real life." They don't realize that they don't really want to watch real life. They don't want to sit and watch a security camera. There's a strong gravity in all of us as viewers - even in myself now and then - to want to see real life depicted. But you're looking for it in the wrong places. It's in little allegories, in something removed.
TV and radio debates seem inflamed, with all that shouting, but real disagreement is always avoided; they conceal their lack of content.
At school, I was a shy lad and still am. But acting gives me licence to be up there, demanding the focus. It's the one time in my life where I don't have to shout to be heard.
I've always had a process that I do before I even get to set or go to the location. I work privately, and it almost feels like therapy between me and who I'm playing. So I have this inner life that's there and it gives me a confidence, too, that when I'm playing the role I know every question.
In films, you do a scene, and that is the end of it. On TV, the cameras capture your real self on a daily basis; it reaches out to viewers across India.
I can also be very happy in this life, but it's usually happiness that I get from other lives I've lived and other dimensions. This life is hardly important to me. It's very small compared to the importance that I think the fourth and fifth dimension have. Those places are much more real to me, like when you have a dream and it's more real to you than real life. Compared to where I'll be going, this life seems like a dream that just feels like a dream.
There's something about Jason Katims' writing that just feels like home to me. He gives you so much liberty to play, which you don't find on most TV shows. You just don't.
There's a way of doing comedy that feels true to the person doing it, that doesn't feel like clown-work or silly faces and antics, but that feels real - like you're playing a real person who has real thoughts and feelings, and it's very grounded. I started to watch all comedy through that prism.
People can now get to see anything they want, in any shape or form, anywhere, on laptop, iPad or 'phone. What's not controllable, though, is the live element. So there's still a real thrill for TV viewers in watching actors pulling it all together and performing live, and a real challenge for the actors.
I believe that the major operating ethic in American society right now, the most universal want and need is to be on TV. I've been on TV. I could be on TV all the time if I wanted to. But most people will never get on TV. It has to be a real breakthrough for them. And trouble is, people will do almost anything to get on it. You know, confess to crimes they haven't committed. You don't exist unless you're on TV. Yeah, it's a validation process.
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