A Quote by Darren Shahlavi

You've got to be creative in acting business. But I need people to believe in me first. I've got to make my name as an actor. — © Darren Shahlavi
You've got to be creative in acting business. But I need people to believe in me first. I've got to make my name as an actor.
Acting is a creative process, and directing and music. I think creative people - and I take myself as a creative person and it doesn't mean you have to be an actor, a musician, or a painter - but I think if you are in a creative profession or a creative business you do have a heightened awareness.
The acting I got into by doing what we call pantomime, when I was sixteen. And, there were loads of very pretty girls in the show. I realized; I found out very early on, that the lead comic gets the girl. So, that was cool. When I went to university, I studied Economic Social History. And drama. That kind of got me into it. My main passion was to make films. It was never to be an actor. At that time, there weren't many opportunities for a working class Scottish actor. It was kind of an English thing. And it required a certain mannered cerebral acting style that I couldn't relate to.
When I'm acting, I've always got to make it make sense to me why I do anything. Whether it's right or wrong, I've just got to believe this is the reason why I am doing this and just go with it.
I started in comedy when I first started as an actor on stage and doing improvisational theater and stuff like that. So a lot of people who know me know that sort of side of me. But I got the roles that I got as an young actor kind of steered me in a different direction, which were, at times, darker characters. And so comedy was not something that came easy for people to think of my in those terms.
I never got in this business, in cinema, to make horror movies. They arrived on my doorstep and I got typecast. Which was fine, I enjoy it, but I got into this business to make westerns. And the kind of westerns I used to see, they died. So that didn't work out.
The first thing I heard when I got in the business - not from my mentor - was, 'Bulls make money, bears make money, and pigs get slaughtered.' I'm here to tell you I was a pig. And I strongly believe the only way to make long-term returns in our business that are superior is by being a pig.
I got into the music business thinking it was really radical, that it wasn't really a business at all, that it was a lot of people being artistic and creative. Not true, and it made me very depressed.
My first professional acting job was on 'Boss'. My first acting job was basically my first acting class. I had to show up on set prepared and knowing my lines. Also, I got a chance to work with a living legend, Kelsey Grammar - that gave me hands on experience.
We’ve got customers. We’ve got suppliers. We’ve got employees. We’ve got unions. We’ve got communities. We’ve got all of these things that go into making up whether a business succeeds or fails.
Quite honestly I never had a desire to be an actor. I tell people, I did not choose acting; acting chose me. I never grew up wanting to be an actor. I wanted to play football. In about 9th grade an English teacher told me I had a talent to act. He said I should audition for a performing arts high school so I did on a whim. I got accepted.
When I first got into this biz called show, I decided I was going to change my name, make it more Hollywood. And you know how you do that? You take your middle name and the first street that you ever lived on. So when I first started, I actually went by Sue Rural Route 2.
My parents wanted to name me Karim Hill. My aunt always liked the name Dule, from this actor Keir Dullea, who was in '2001: Space Odyssey.' That's how I got the name Karim Dule Hill. Growing up, I never liked the name Karim because people would ask me, 'Could you dunk like Kareem Abdul Jabbar?'
I wanted to be an actor. Maybe a comic actor, but an actor. That's what got me into acting was putting on an act, because in life, I wasn't funny and I felt on stage or in the movies, I could do whatever I wanted to. I was free.
My acting ability would have sent me back to the post office. It was my singing that got me jobs. Ironically, now, people think of me as an actor and don't know me much as a singer.
The fashion business got boring. I was working with big companies, but the minute it became too formulaic, I got bored with it. I wanted to do a creative space where I could just make stuff - kind of like an atelier, where I could collaborate with other artists, drape geometric shapes on the body, make cushion covers, or whatever.
I felt like for what I needed, Bad Boy got me... they got me covered. Especially Puff, man. He's going to be the first billionaire rap entertainer. At the end of the day, they need me. Other artists-labels don't need me, but Bad Boy and Puff needs me. And I need them. It goes both ways.
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