Great men, unknown to their generation, have their fame among the great who have preceded them, and all true worldly fame subsides from their high estimate beyond the stars.
The time of getting fame for your name on its own is over. Artwork that is only about wanting to be famous will never make you famous. Any fame is a by-product of making something that means something. You don't go to a restaurant and order a meal because you want to have a sh*t.
It was never a goal of mine to become famous. So, I never projected any goals associated with that. But I did have a bunch of goals I wanted to achieve when I was financially able to do so, but they had nothing to do with fame. When I set goals, they're more tangible than becoming famous. You don't build a company or a foundation for fame.
To be an artist is not about fame; it's about art, which is this intangible thing that has got to have lots of integrity, whereas being famous doesn't really take any integrity. But I think you have to admit that you want to be famous, otherwise you can't be an artist. Art and fame together are like a desire to live forever.
I love celebrities, and I love the concept of fame, but it took me getting fame to realize that it doesn't exist, which was kind of a bummer. Fame is great if you're not famous, because it seems like this elusive impossible dream world. And it's not. It's a fancy word that managers and producers make up so they can keep hawking you for more money.
If you're lucky enough to be famous, then it's great if you can use your fame and the power your fame gives you to draw attention to things that really matter.
Being famous as a writer is like being famous in a village. It's not really any very heady fame.
Practically everyone in Hollywood has a neighbor whos been famous, wants to be famous, is famous, has been married to someone famous, worked with someone famous, slept with someone famous, been blackmailed by someone famous.
The only way to be turned off to being famous is to be famous. And I only have like a tiny, tiny bit of that, and I'm already disgusted by it. But I realize that the only way to be disgusted by fame is to be famous, because otherwise it looks amazing. Then people stop you on the street, and it's like the most annoying thing in the world. The first time it happened it's great, and then the second time you have to shake somebody's hand.
Somewhere along the way, we made it unpopular to value oneself outside the structure of fame. We created these new categories, even - reality stars, YouTube stars, Instagram-famous, Twitter-famous - when we enlarged the fame game board to allow new valuations within the fame structure to accommodate as many people as possible.
Practically everyone in Hollywood has a neighbor who's been famous, wants to be famous, is famous, has been married to someone famous, worked with someone famous, slept with someone famous, been blackmailed by someone famous.
In the realm of pop celebrity, the bar has been lowered so far that there is no bar. People can be famous for being famous, famous for being infamous, famous for having once been famous and, thanks largely to the Internet, famous for not being famous at all.
There's a panic, a rush, to this 'achievement' of fame. There's also the ambivalence of fame: the love of it and the hatred of it. We sometimes hate the famous while, at the same time, straining to achieve fame oneself.
Is fame without purpose and is fame without talent really where we are now? People used to be famous for what they did. Now, they're just famous.
Life beats down and crushes our souls and theatre reminds us that we have one. At least the type of theatre that I'm interested in; that is, theatre that moves an audience. You have the opportunity to literally impact the lives of people if they work on material that has integrity. But today, most actors simply want to be famous. Well, being an actor was never supposed to be about fame and money. Being an actor is a religious calling because you've been given the ability, the gift to inspire humanity. Think about that on the way to your soap opera audition.
I'm not in it for fame. I've been famous in the streets already.