A Quote by Mary Beth McKenzie

I always work directly from life, partly because I really enjoy having an interaction with the person in front of me but also because I love having a direct response to shape and color.
Life is indeed difficult, partly because of the real difficulties we must overcome in order to survive, and partly because of our own innate desire to always do better, to overcome new challenges, to self-actualize. Happiness is experienced largely in striving towards a goal, not in having attained things, because our nature is always to want to go on to the next endeavor.
I enjoy doing very high mileages, partly out of masochism and also because I like to feel the shape of the landscape.
I think it's very valuable as an actor to throw yourself back into having that direct connection with an audience on-stage and work that muscle. It is a very different type of work and equally fascinating. I mean, I've very much in love with filmmaking because I really love the way you can tell stories with a camera and how music and everything contributes to the story in a very direct way. But I also think it's very valuable to come back to theatre, so if the right script came along I would love to come back to London and do some more.
If I can avoid doing freelance work, I prefer to. Not just because it takes me away from drawing comics, but also because it's just annoying having to deal with art editors, and having to read people's articles or books or whatever.
I struggle quite a lot in rehearsals, partly because I'm shy, partly because I still don't really understand the work that actors and directors do. I love the magic at the end, but the getting there - the wrong turns that are necessary to make something work - I find slightly beguiling and worrying.
I guess the main thing I definitely don't enjoy is having a job which involves selling things. You become an author because you think you're good at writing. Not because you love to promote yourself. I enjoy some of it and I've had a really fun few years so basically I have nothing to complain about. But what I don't like is the thought that it's going to go on for the rest of my life.
I'm really excited to act again because when I started out, there was an innocent sort of perception of the world that was coming though me, and I think now through a lot of experience and life and understanding, I've come full circle to having a purer response to things. So my craft will be really interesting to work from this place because I think acting is about being in tune with yourself - or maybe the struggle to be in tune with yourself.
White people don't have that problem, they get to go through life never having to fit into a box, and it's really more so true for white men because even just being a woman, you sort of have to walk around other people's assumptions of you and it's so exhausting and there's a sense, especially among young people of wanting to just live your life, not having to wear the weight of that pressure - pressure that people of color feel, that gay people of color feel, that women of color feel.
Programming in the abstract sense is what I really enjoy. I enjoy lots of different areas of it... I'm taking a great deal of enjoyment writing device drivers for Linux. I could also be having a good time writing a database manager or something because there are always interesting problems.
I have an experience with as many of my readers as possible that's really genuine. I love it when they write to me, and I'm able to send them things. I love meeting them in person, and even if it's only for a moment I love having that physical, touching interaction.
I've also learned to only write songs and melodies that really work for my voice and that I won't have issues doing live. Because you can get really, really comfortable in the comping process: out of five takes, maybe one of those high notes that you struggled to do, nailed it, and then live you're having that challenge of really having to recreate that.
I don't get sick of being naked, but the added pressure is staying in really good shape, because naked shape is a different kind of shape than just regular TV shape. Regular, having-your-clothes-on TV shape is intense, but naked TV shape is, I mean, you really have to watch what you eat.
I love sports because it takes me away from reality, and I tell people, 'No matter how bad your life is, if you are having problems at home, you are having problems at work, that's the beauty of sports.'
But in the meantime I became accustomed to the writing life and it would be hard to change now - partly because of the salary cut if I went to my other love, teaching; and partly because I still have stories to tell, even though it isn't all that fun doing the work anymore.
I honestly think if I had made a ton of money as an actor, I wouldn't have done anything else. (Hah!) Then I turned to writing plays. If that paid me well, I don't know if I would have turned to TV. Or coaching. I've now devised a combination of things partly because I'm having fun, and partly because I'm piecing together a way to make a living.
I really enjoy what I do, and who I'm with and where I am. Having said that, I'm not really a person of habit, because what I do in my job is travel around the world and play concerts to people, and occasionally do very weird things.
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