Eventually, if you're the train that's leaving the station, people will race to catch up with you. I think that's one of the things I've figured out. You can't wait for permission to act, you just do; then people are like, "Oh, look at that person just doing over there. Maybe I'll come join them."
Apparently people don't like the truth, but I do like it; I like it because it upsets a lot of people. If you show them enough times that their arguments are bullshit, then maybe just once, one of them will say, 'Oh! Wait a minute - I was wrong.' I live for that happening. Rare, I assure you
Some people even think that I'm still just not right for it [ballet]. And I think it's shocking because they hear those words from critics saying I'm too bulky, I'm too busty. And then they meet me in person and they're like, you look like a ballerina. And I think it's just something maybe that I will never escape from, those people who are narrow-minded. But my mission, my voice, my story, my message, is not for them. And I think it's more important to think of the people that I am influencing and helping to see a broader picture of what beauty is.
As an actor, I don't know what I'm doing. I've never known what I was doing. I show up the first day, I'm scared, and I just hang out. It's like being in detention - you just wait for it to be over. Then gradually I start to figure out what's going on.
Some people just look at opportunities and say, 'Maybe something better might come along; let's wait and see.' But you don't wait. You just grab it and go after it.
The people who are making a lot of money and eating at McDonald's and watching MTV and have square eyeballs, they're over there. And then maybe there's like five other people left in America and I'm just waiting for them to come up with something interesting.
I've seen many female comics that a lot of people haven't heard of who are so funny, and I saw them come up, and they were working so hard, and then all of a sudden they had a baby, and they just got tied up in motherhood, and eventually, they kind of just stopped doing stand-up, and I thought it was such a shame.
I was 16. In the middle of the night, I took a taxi to the Detroit train station - or maybe it was the Pontiac train station? - and got on a train to Chicago, then transferred to a train to San Diego where my boyfriend was living at the time.
I don't have a gun. But I think they level the playing field. I accept that there's really nothing you can do about it. It's like nuclear weapons; if they exist then eventually other people are going to have them. Maybe just take away people's motivation to use them.
When we grew up, we couldn't wait to get our hands on cars, work with them, change the look of them. Now you see kids being like, 'I'll just take the Uber,' or 'Oh, I don't even have my driver's license yet.' I'm like, 'Ugh, who are you people?'
As a comedian I don't think they look at me as a sexual person but I can see where with actors it would be a little difficult for them because its part of their mystique, it gives them an easier time to change characters and people aren't going oh we have a gay actor, their gay so I don't know if I'm gunna buy this guy with this girl, its weird, I don't think it's fair; it's only done with us, it seems, like they just accept everyone as straight and go along with it and then its oh their gay and make a big deal out of it.
You ride one in to the beach, and it's the most amazing thing you've ever felt. But at some point the water goes back out; it has to. And maybe you're lucky-maybe you're both too busy to do anything drastic. Maybe you're good as friends, so you stay. And then something happens-maybe it's something as big as a baby, or as small as him unloading the dishwasher-and the wave comes back in again. And it does that, over and over. I just think sometimes people forget to wait.
Earlier in my career I just thought "I'm not very confident, I don't like singing to people." But people had some faith in me, and here we are. Sometimes I think "Oh maybe I should just be a backing singer." But I've got an amazing team of people who tell me to shut up when I'm like "Oh god, I can't do it." But now, I can't really imagine it being the other way.
Be yourself and do what you actually like doing as an artist. Don't try to think too much about where am I gonna fit in here, and how is this gonna be received, and who is gonna like this? Just do what you like doing and make sure that you enjoy doing it. If you do that and you get good at it by practising, then people are gonna come around - there's so many people out there that listen to all kinds of music. It's important to just do what you like, otherwise the fun gets sucked out of it.
The ones I love most are the people who the flaws show. I like doing characters that we see the total person. If people get afraid to show the flaws because they think, "Oh, then nobody will like them," then you end up with a lot of products, and everybody wants to be frigging heroic all the time - not what people are trapped in every day, like your skirt being in your panties after you walk out of the bathroom. Being human. Sometimes when people are drawn to your work, they're drawn because they recognize themselves or their loved ones or their neighbor in it.
Our duty as storytellers is to bring people to the station. There each person will choose his or her own train...But we must at least take them to the station...to a point of departure.
I just think to pose for the Body Issue is a good idea for people that are bigger-boned. If people can look at me, a guy that's 325-plus, doing an issue like this, I'm pretty sure that they might have a little confidence. There will be critics, just like with everything else. I think a lot of people will get a laugh out of it, I'll tell you that. I'm looking forward to what the locker room's going to say. But at the end of the day, I'm perfectly fine with who I am as a person and what I have accomplished. It shows a lot of my personality.