A Quote by David Lauren

I didn't want to work with my father. I wanted to see if I could develop my own career. — © David Lauren
I didn't want to work with my father. I wanted to see if I could develop my own career.
My father told me, "Don't do anything that would bring shame to the family." I was always mindful of that. When I told him I wanted to pursue a career as an actor, my father said, "Look at what you see on television at the movies, is that what you want to be doing? Do you want to make a life out of that?" And I said, "Daddy, I'm going to change it".
I wanted to develop a career where I could use my engineering background to have a positive effect on society.
I've always been very ambitious, and I always knew that I wanted something else. Cuba was a good start, but I knew I wasn't going to develop a real career, and I wanted to get closer to filmmakers that I wanted to work with.
Early on, I decided I would see if I could make a career work on my own terms.
[My father] could see as far as he could see and my mother wanted us to go to college so it was a very real part of my life.
All I wanted to do was come into my own and find out my career path and what I wanted to do with my life - but, at the same time, showing respect to my father and mother and make them proud as well.
I had convinced my father to let me pursue this career, and I passionately wanted it. And here was this conflict in me, and I hadn't shared it with my father. And it was excruciating to always have your guard up. Particularly because, being an actor, you're public and visible. I could be seen coming out of a gay bar. Who could have seen me?
In my mid-twenties, I was with a conducting career, but I had never been to university and I wanted to. There were things I wanted to study in depth. I also wanted to see if I could survive without music.
It seems that people are more comfortable with the private outrage about gay marriage, because when you are outraged about this issue, it requires no work. There's no work that you have to do when you're outraged about a gay couple. There is work that you have to do if you want to see black fathers raise their children. There is work that you have to do if you want to see a school develop.
I was lucky I went to school in London because the tutors could see what to do. I knew I wanted to do something different. Why would I want to do what other people were already doing, because they would always do it better? I always wanted to work around the body. So throughout my college years, my work was quite free.
I wanted to play Super 15. I wanted to develop some maturity, some leadership and to work on my skill set. Also I want to have played all round the world.
Part of why I wanted to produce was because I wanted the opportunity to work on projects I want to see. As a writer and as a director, I'm very specific about the kinds of things that I want to do. The opportunity that producing has given me is that by working with different writers and trying to get their movies made, or developing their script, or making their movies, every time I'm doing it, I'm learning and then bringing something to my own work. I like to think that there's a little bit of back and forth that goes on.
That's one thing that I've always wanted: to make my own decisions and not to be pushed. That has happened in my career, and I wanted to leave football, not football to leave me. I wanted to enjoy it as much as I could and to leave it a little bit earlier than too late.
I was lucky that I started very young, since I had a very clear idea of what I wanted to do. But my father is very conservative, and he never considered fashion to be a real career but something I could pursue as a hobby. He wanted me to be a doctor, and at one point, I thought of becoming a plastic surgeon.
I'm much more aware of how distraught my father could be internally. That was normal to me - the obsession with work, the crazy hours - and when I watch it on screen I really see how enveloped he was by show business to the point where he didn't develop much of another life. Everything was show business to him.
Obviously I've got to work hard to have my own label, but it all benefits me in a different kind of way. I can say "No," and nobody's going to be pissed off or breathe down my neck. I can draw the line and take breaks when I want to. I try not to. And getting to develop other artists is something I've always wanted to do.
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