Although I use myself in my videos, I really see myself as a character. When I look at myself, when I sit and edit, I never think, "That's me." I think, "This is a character, and how do I edit this to tell a story?"
I don't see myself only as a Somali character. I think of myself as an actor, and if the job fits me and I like the story, I will go for it.
I dont see myself only as a Somali character. I think of myself as an actor, and if the job fits me and I like the story, I will go for it.
I write a chapter, then edit it and edit it and edit it and edit it. I don't think we mine creativity from within. It's bestowed from on high, from God.
I grew up never seeing myself on-screen, and it's really important to me to give people who look like me a chance to see themselves. I want to see myself as the hero of any story. I want to see myself save the world from the bomb.
It's really liberating and fun to be writing stuff for myself, and really have the freedom to say what I want to say and not really have to think about what somebody else is going to say or have to edit myself to speak from someone else's vision.
The way a character looks reflects what's on the inside. I can make myself look really bad, and I can make myself look kind of gorgeous. It's not about me; it's about the character.
With my YouTube videos, I used to edit a lot of my own videos, so I've gotten used to seeing myself on camera.
I'm an actor, I created the character myself originally. I do tell the fans I appreciate that they think he's real. It all finally comes down to the writers who really got the character and wrote so many memorable lines.
I do like a song that can look good on a page without even being sung. I edit and edit and edit.
My very first story, I was around 5, and I really just wrote myself. When I was 5, I loved myself so much I gave myself a twin named Tomi. Everything started out fine. But then I didn't write another black character until I was 18.
I think I'll go over and introduce myself to that little red-haired girl. I think I'll introduce myself, and then ask her to come over and sit next to me. I think I'll ask her to sit next to me here, and then I think I'll tell her how much I've always admired her... I think I'll flap my arms, and fly to the moon.
I kept a lot of my thoughts inside myself. So, perhaps more than is normal, I'm always questioning my role as a writer. I'm always stopping and asking myself: Do I have the right to tell this story? Is it a story that deserves to be heard? And as for whether I think of myself as a Writer with a capital "W," I very much hope I never do.
If I speak with a character’s voice it is because that character’s become so much part of me that … I think I have the right then to imagine myself into the skin, into the life, into the dreams, into the experience of the particular character that I’ve chosen.
I always see myself as a character actor, but Remington Steele was me. I gave up on trying to be any character. I just put myself as me in this world of Remington Steele and the grand pretender.
[Do you know] how it feels to be a clownish character? It's always complicated to imagine conveying yourself outside of your body. Inside myself I feel like this rich, complicated thing, and then I see representations of myself, especially in the media - and I think this is why it's troubling for me, because I feel so caricatured and flattened.
Film is definitely a director's medium. They're responsible for the look and everything, and you're a part of that process as an actor, and you try to contribute to the story. But I think it might sound a little pretentious for me to say I think of myself as an artist. I think of myself as a creative person.