Personally, especially as a young black woman, I didn't think that Los Angeles was a place for me to start. There's a certain type that they go for or don't.
I think Los Angeles is often portrayed as kind of a petri dish, where bad decisions start and then spread to the rest of the world. I don't see it that way. I feel Los Angeles is a place of almost primal struggle and survival. It's not a city that embraces its inhabitants.
I don't live in Los Angeles. I work in Los Angeles, and even that - I audition in Los Angeles; I very rarely film in Los Angeles. I don't hang out with producers on my off-hours, so I don't even know what that world is like.
Los Angeles has been great to me, and I have a home there, and I'm so lucky I get to do what I do for a living. But I did not go down to Los Angeles really even with the intention of staying.
Sprawl is the American ideal way to develop. I believe that what we're developing in Denver is in no appreciable way different than what we're doing in Los Angeles - did in Los Angeles and are still doing. But I think we have developed the Los Angeles model of city-building, and I think it is unfortunate.
Los Angeles was a place after my own heart. The people were hospitable. The country had the same attraction for me that it had for the Indians who originally chose this spot as their place to live. The Los Angeles River was a beautiful, limpid little stream, with willows on its banks. It was so attractive to me that it at once became something about which my whole scheme of life was woven, I loved it so much.
I live in Los Angeles, which is the youngest place - there's no history to Los Angeles. Everything's fake.
You don't normally think of Los Angeles as a place to go to get away.
I think... I love Los Angeles. I live in New York, and I love New York as well, but I think Los Angeles is a place where if you have the right person with you, there are all these little worlds that you would never guess by just looking at the exterior of what the city is.
Chicago is seriously my favorite city in the country. People have roots here, which is nice. When you go to Los Angeles, no one is actually from Los Angeles.
In 1983, I was working at an art gallery in Los Angeles and going to film school at Los Angeles City College. At that time, Jean-Michel Basquiat was a young painter and was visiting L.A. for his first show at the Larry Gagosian Gallery.
I went to Los Angeles and enrolled in a production course at the University of California, Los Angeles. In the morning I attended industry meetings and in the evening, I would go for the course.
I don't mind staying in one place for a while - I like to spend a lot of time in Los Angeles. It's a place where nobody goes out, where people will leave you alone. People in Los Angeles love themselves and they love what they do and they leave you alone. If you're isolated, you have a real advantage. You can work.
As a black woman, I've always had to work hard to earn my respect as a musician - and as a young woman, too. As a writer, in certain sessions or certain rooms people think, 'Who's kid is this? Who's this little girl?' I've had to prove myself.
I love that we are bringing the flavors of Frontera to Los Angeles. I think we can only add to the booming food community in Los Angeles. Our food is gutsy and soulful.
Each and every one of us has multiple identities, and this is a fact that should be celebrated. I for example, am a queer black woman who grew up poor in Los Angeles.
Los Angeles is not going to be a big naive step for me. I know it's tough out there, but I do think there's a place for Irish actors in that market.