A Quote by Jenifer Lewis

You think you can go into all those auditions not knowing who you are? The work came after I found my sense of self - when I wasn't so manic and desperate. — © Jenifer Lewis
You think you can go into all those auditions not knowing who you are? The work came after I found my sense of self - when I wasn't so manic and desperate.
The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation. What is called resignation is confirmed desperation. From the desperate city you go into the desperate country, and have to console yourself with the bravery of minks and muskrats. A stereotyped but unconscious despair is concealed even under what are called the games and amusements of mankind. There is no play in them, for this comes after work. But it is a characteristic of wisdom not to do desperate things.
Manic depression is a type of depression, technically, and it's the opposite of uni-polar. Manic depression is also called bi-polar disorder. Some people don't like to call it that because they think it makes it sound too nice, when the reality is if you have manic-depression you have manic-depression.
I know I am a human being. I can give myself to one year for a project. That is why I say I'm primitive in the way I work, especially compared to most artists. I came to New York in 1974, knowing that it is the art center of the world. But I didn't go to find people for my work. I do the work, and the people come to me, and I learn from them. That has always been my approach - to do the job first and then to respond to it after I finish and learn what people think about it. That's how I develop, and I'm more of an outsider in that way.
The mindset of the people who put the shows on and those who go buy a ticket is so fundamentally different. The band themselves don't have a sense of things, and I found this out after a lot of years of pain and frustration.
After the first establishment of identity there comes the imperative need to lose this new-found sense of separateness and to belong to something larger and more powerful than the weak, lonely self. The sense of moral isolation is intolerable to us.
There's a difference between a sense of humor and a sense of funny. A sense of humor is knowing what makes you laugh and a sense of funny is knowing what makes other people laugh. The journey of comedy, in a sense, is negotiating those two worlds.
Football is based on desperation. All clubs are desperate in one form or another - desperate to succeed, desperate to survive, desperate to stay where they are, desperate that things get no worse, desperate to arrest the slide.
It was sad, like those businessmen who came to work in serious clothes but wore colorful ties in a mad, desperate attempt to show there was a free spirit in there somewhere.
I was not getting work, even after auditioning for films. So I started working in a studio as a photographer; I assisted a cinematographer for two ads. I was thinking that I will get into photography or cinematography or assist someone. But then the 'Dangal' offer came, and I was busy with the auditions.
I remember reading in a comedy book very long ago when I first started, a person said there's a difference between a sense of humor and a sense of funny. A sense of humor is knowing what makes you laugh and a sense of funny is knowing what makes other people laugh. The journey of comedy, in a sense, is negotiating those two worlds.
In the egoic state, your sense of self, your identity, is derived from your thinking mind - in other words, what your mind tells you about yourself: the storyline of you, the memories, the expectations, all the thoughts that go through your head continuously and the emotions that reflect those thoughts. All those things make up your sense of self.
The self-assured strength that grows from knowing that we already have what we need makes us gentle, because we are no longer desperate.
Work and self-worth are the two factors in pride that interact with each other and that tend to increase the strong sense of pride found in superior work teams. When people do something of obvious worth, they feel a strong sense of personal worth.
I finally came to terms with manic depression and lithium. I've taken lithium regularly for the past few years and have had no further bouts with manic depression.
I had done a couple of auditions for 'Amistad' and didn't feel it was going to go any further - and then the call came about heading to Los Angeles to work with Steven Spielberg. It was surreal: exciting, challenging, overwhelming.
When I came to Mumbai to audition for a dance reality show, I was in top 100. I doubted myself and did not get through. It was a lesson for me... After that day, whenever I used to go for auditions, I never doubted myself.
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