A Quote by Ella Mai
When I went into high school, I don't know why - because I've been performing since I was little - but I think it was just the pressure of being somewhere so different, and I already stood out because I had an accent, and everyone always wanted you to talk, that I kind of shied away from singing a bit.
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The only pressure comes form myself. I put pressure on myself at first just because I was intimidated. When I made Amy Poehler laugh, it was a big thing for me. She's been one of my role models since high school, because she started UCB, which is what I wanted to do since high school.
I love singing and performing. I'm always singing. Even if I'm at school or in the car, I'm always singing. My mom said ever since I could talk, I was singing.
I never had a desire to be famous... I was fat. I didn't know any fat famous actresses... You know, once a fat kid, always a fat kid. Because you always think that you just look a little bit wrong or a little bit different from everyone else. And I still sort of have that.
I came here from Romania when I was 12 years old. I had an accent. High school was tough a little bit for a few years. I wanted to fit in. I wanted to be liked. I wanted to be good-looking. I wanted to be popular. I spent a lot of time thinking, 'What are these people going to think of me?'
I had a high school sweetheart that was my first. We were together all through high school. I had just broken up with him because I didn't think I was good enough. He wanted to be an anesthesiologist. I wanted to be an entertainer. His life was more planned out, and mine wasn't.
I used to think I was unstable, because I had this thirst for something. I could never figure out what it was. I couldn’t sleep at night, and I always wanted to be somewhere else. I have a window tattooed, this little box, and it’s because wherever I was, I wanted to be somewhere else. And, I always saw myself, wherever I was in life, staring out the window.
Families that I lived with a little bit in junior high and quite a bit in high school and college. Just to have a safe, sane space with food and things like that. That's what I needed. And people were really kind and really generous. So I think the world kind of opened up my first years of performing arts, studying classical saxophone with Caesar DiMauro.
I had a little bit of expectations just to be not terrible, because you can't be named so similar to a sport and not be at least adequate at that sport. I don't think there's been expectations to be really good, because my parents never put that kind of pressure on me, but I had to be at least decent.
While taking sign language in high school, one of our assignments was to go out and participate in the deaf community, so I really got to know a lot of the group from that. I felt like they needed a little bit more of a voice because people treat them different just because they're hearing impaired.
But why do you want to talk to me?' He is going to say: 'Because you look so kind,' or 'Because you look so beautiful and kind,' or, subtly, 'Because you look as if you'll understand....' He says: 'Because I think you won't betray me.' I had meant to get this mean to talk to me and tell me all about it, and then be so devastatingly English that perhaps I should manage to hurt him a little in return for all the many times I've been hurt.... 'Because I think you won't betray me, because I think you won't betray me....' Now it won't be so easy.
By high school, I was telling everyone, 'Oh, I'm going to be a doctor when I grow up,' because my dad was always saying to me, 'Pick a career path where you're always going to be necessary.' But by junior year, I was president of choir, I was the lead in the school play, and I just loved being onstage performing.
I was always torn between wanting whatever I pictured as a typical high school experience and that being just a part I wanted to play. I've written about this, but one of those typical high school experiences was drill team. Like, I just really wanted to wear a uniform and get on the bus and be part of this group. As an only child, the idea of blending in - and literally everyone being in sync and not standing out at all - felt like kind of a fun family thing.
I get a bit nervous because I just want the show to go well. I think you always have to be a little bit nervous, or else you're a little checked-out, and that's maybe the time when you're not doing your best stuff, because you're kind of just checked-out and falling back on stuff.
I had a few really bad years in school, just from not fitting in and being bullied. It was kind of brilliant being a military brat, though, because when you're in that kind of situation, you just think, 'I only have to hang on for another year, because then we'll move. It'll be fine if I can just get out of here.'
My accent fades away I guess when I sing. It's real weird. I guess singing is pretty much a universal language like you sing however everyone else sings and that's with an American accent. I sound very different when I talk.
I didn't feel that so much as an outsider when I started writing; I've felt that way all my life. I don't know, man; I guess I was just wired wrong. When I was growing up, I always wanted to be somebody else and live somewhere else. I've always felt a little uncomfortable around people. And I'm not trying to romanticize this, because it wasn't romantic. I wasn't trying to be a rebel; I just always felt a little out of it. I think that's why it's pretty easy for me to identify with people living on the margins.
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