A Quote by Common

Doing acting opened up other creative outlets; it made me feel freer as an artist. — © Common
Doing acting opened up other creative outlets; it made me feel freer as an artist.
Me being able to be acting and doing other things has opened me as an artist, and I think even more from a visual standpoint.
There was no one moment when I decided I would spend my life acting. I am not certain that I will. Acting has never been a consistent passion. I have done it since I was young - so I have been acting for 30 years - but intermittently. I always had other jobs, joys, and creative outlets.
I realized that a dancer's life is very short and I had so much of a creative energy in me that I needed outlets to do other things so that's when I started acting more and it all kind of blended together. When you're on stage you're acting and you're dancing, it started blended together now.
My mother teaches high school English, and she's an artist and a poet and a sculptor, she's published twelve poetry books. I grew up in a household in Venezuela with living, breathing art installations that were the way that she used to express herself, a highly creative environment where ideas were celebrated, where artistic expression was celebrated. Seeing her as somebody who was always able to have a creative output - if she felt sad, she wrote a poem, if she felt happy, she made a sculpture - I think for me, there was an early interest in finding outlets for my passions.
Fox News covers stories that some other news outlets won't cover. We ask some questions that other news outlets wouldn't ask. And sometimes that's perceived as bias by people who've grown up in a world where there are only liberal outlets.
Stand-up can take you in so many different places, man. So many doors can be opened up from stand-up comedy, and the first one that was opened up for me was acting. But you can go from acting to being a TV personality to being a radio personality to being a writer to being a producer, to just being a visionary, to voiceover work.
Acting is such a personal thing, which is weird because at the same time it's not. It's for the consumption of other people. But in terms of creative outlets and expressing yourself, it's just the most extreme version of that that I've ever found. It's like running, it's exertion.
I honestly don't have many creative outlets. I'm not crafty - although motherhood has forced me to try to be - and I can only draw trees, beaches, and clouds. I'm a so-so cook except for deviled eggs. Writing has always been the one thing I feel that I am pretty good at doing. But it's enough, thank goodness.
Stand-up can take you in so many different places, man. So many doors can be opened up from stand-up comedy, and the first one that was opened up for me was acting.
I love games. I honestly can't imagine working with any other medium. I guess it would be akin to an artist who's doing commercial art and then goes into education, but it really frees you up to do all other kinds of creative stuff.
Eventually I want to subsidize my income with other creative outlets that are going to not keep me tied to the road so much.
If I didn't have to worry about money, I would be doing the same thing I'm doing now. Additionally, I would maintain other creative outlets -- glassblowing and woodworking. I would operate a salon-format venue geared towards deviation; a destabilization of the audience/rock star dynamic.
You would almost think it would be the opposite, but making a film sort of made me freer in my acting.
School allowed me to have outlets so that some of the pressure was taken off the acting. Every role in every movie, I used to live or die by. Once I had these new outlets, I relaxed a lot more.
Acting was something I always wanted to try. I just didn't know how, or I didn't know when the door was gonna be open for me to try it. But it finally opened up for me when I did 'Turn It Up', and ever since then I've been in love with doing films.
My dad is an English teacher, and my mom is a textiles artist. My parents made my sisters and me feel that if we wanted to pursue something creative, it could be done. They've always been supportive of everything from the beginning.
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