A Quote by Dee Rees
For me, Sundance always felt big. It's not the only way to make your way, but for me, it was definitely that critical link between struggling artist, kind of working on my own, to actually working professionally and being connected and being seen.
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Working a model liberated me from ever having to hold a day job. I transitioned from doing that to working full-time as an artist. If you're 19 and living cheap, being an artist model can sustain you. I dropped out of college at 21 and my illustration hadn't yet taken off. It is more than working in a store. It is a hard way to make a living but you earn more than in a similarly unskilled job.
I think the best way to be an activist is to live your life well and be honest. It means being out. If you are not comfortable marching, you can make a big difference just by working side by side with someone who actually knows you're gay and a fine human being.
I just really feel so grateful to Sundance because I've always been an artist and I've never been able to make a living at being an artist until Sundance.
I have only recently got interested in film, and it is a strange way of working in many ways. But actually, when it is at its best, it's quite an extraordinary way of working between a director and an actor, to really explore an inner life.
I remember working with Jackie Chan on Shanghai Noon [2000], and when we were working on the script, I thought that my character thought about being an outlaw the way a kid today would think about being a rock star, as a way to impress girls. So it was just kind of a funny idea, but once we had that idea, it changed the character and made it something that was funnier to me to play.
When you're working with somebody else in that kind of way, you always have to have these guidelines to what you're doing - especially when you're working with your sibling. But when you're working by yourself you're free to do whatever you like.
Being my own boss and working inside an industry that's not really an industry, I need to keep busy and keep working. The only way to make money in music - unless you're managing someone - is to tour, and even that depends on where you are at.
I'd got a part in the original cast of 'Cats' when I was 16, and that kept me going for a while. After that, I felt lost, both personally and professionally - I was trying to find a way not to be seen only as this bubbly, bright, vivacious person. It felt like I'd lost the freedom to make mistakes.
Being an openly gay black man, unfortunately I've had experiences working with individuals who've tried to exploit my blackness or my gayness in a way that doesn't make me feel comfortable, or they try to manipulate me into being a caricature of myself.
The way that I'm working now is basically the way I've been working since I was a kid: Find the greatest artist in whatever you do, and rip them off with respect. I think there's a big difference between ripping off with respect and ripping off in disrespect.
Before I was working professionally, I would do YouTube covers. But as a creative person, it was really hard for me when I wasn't releasing my own music. That felt unnatural to me.
I know that it feels dangerous and scary and working without a net, so to speak. And working without a net, for me - maybe other women do it a totally different way - means being vanity-free. That's how, as an artist, I know that I need to work.
I just always felt whole when I was writing. I felt this kind of beautiful privacy that I never felt in any other way. I feel like there's this great fullness to being alone, and writing is a really vivid way and a really magical way of being alone.
All my films are about kind of being seen to be one thing when you're actually something else, and the power of the female spirit to make things work your way on your terms. Which is what I do.
I think being in the public eye has made me more determined than other people to show that I do belong at the top, and I believe I am one of the hardest-working people at the rink. I feel like I have always been that way, but sometimes I just get in my own way.
I grew up in L.A., and I don't think I've seen L.A. onscreen in a way that felt real to me. There are definitely movies, but they are few and far between.
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