A Quote by James Acaster

When you're talking about a really horrible personal thing that happened to you... and it doesn't get laughs... I feel really exposed and like I've overshared with some strangers.
I thought that the behavioral and some of the profiling stuff was interesting. The thing that I was most interested in, and the thing that we were really adament about, was let's get these guys who were there on tape, or in some kind of way, telling what happened. No one has really talked to them all.
The jokes now, it's just more stories and personal experiences. And just talking about things that really happened. It's just becoming more comfortable as a performer, sharing my opinions on things, or things that've happened to me. That's where it's really going.
Some really good things kind of swing both ways and I like to see people that can swing really, really, really sad and horrible and terrible and really, really, really beautiful and funny.
The great thing about 'Allen Gregory' is that we try to make it really questionable that the things he says have happened, have really happened. We like that ambiguity.
For me songwriting is very...it's almost like an accident. 'Oh I accidentally wrote about that.' I sit down with the urge to write a song and then afterward it turns out being really personal. I get really overwhelmed by how I feel a lot and sometimes - I feel like my body and my brain can't deal with all the different emotions and I feel like I'm just going to explode.
I believe, and this is something I also learned from Alice Munro, that there's a moment where the personal becomes totally universal. When you see that person in their pathetic moment, that's the moment where the completely unifying sympathy with that person is possible - where you're no longer a person here and they're someone over there, and you can really feel like one, you can really feel like a human being. Or more like, you can really feel like flesh and blood, because I feel like that moment is the same thing with animals.
I think if you feel weird and self-conscious about that kind of stuff - which happened to me at some points - that means your ego is really kicking in. You can understand how people get to be assholes in music business because it's like you're getting pumped full of your own thing so much, you get ungrounded. That's a dangerous place to be.
I listen to a lot of songs, and they aren't talking about anything. I don't connect with them. I'll listen to something like Musiq Soulchild's 'Just Friends,' and I'm like, 'Wow, I really feel what he's talking about.' That's how I want people to feel about my music.
For some reason, I'm really comfortable talking about my personal life in songs.
Individuality is a personal thing. It's based on your own personal feelings and expression of self. So, really, it's nobody's business to judge you but yourself. And if you feel that you're expressing yourself as an individual, and you feel confident in it, then that really should be all that matters.
I play shows sometimes, and if everything's connecting, I start blabbing to the audience about anything. Between songs, talking about things in my personal life, or whatever. But there are other situations where I feel a little closed-off. It's really kind of a day-to-day thing.
One thing that I discovered about myself is I really don't like traveling. I feel like it's a terrible personal failing, but I was so satisfied to arrive at the conclusion.
Working out for me is something I do when I feel like it. But it's really about feeling good and taking care of my body rather than having to fit into any sort of model or anything like that. I try to eat well, and everything I do is really just to make me feel my best so that I can come to my job or my personal life and just feel really good.
One thing I've experienced and I feel really grateful for now that I'm on my way out is that I felt that the justices gave that back to me. I really did. You know, of course, you can have some sharp exchanges. That's the nature of the thing, and that's fine. But really in the main I felt like the tone from them was, "Yeah. We may not agree with you, but we're going to have a discussion about this." And it did.
I'm actually a very dark person, so I really want to get into some really dark roles, maybe some thrillers. I've never done one of those, so I think I'd really want to get into that, but definitely something that would get lots of people talking.
Often, as an interviewer, particularly when you're talking to highly visible people, celebrities, and it's known that negative things have happened, they don't want to talk about it, or you have to really work up to it. You have to carefully construct the conversation so that they feel open enough to discuss some of those things with you.
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