I think what's exciting about doing it as found footage - if we all are being honest, found footage gets a little bit of a bad rap sometimes, but I think that there's a lot of potential in the medium in taking it seriously and in treating the audience with respect and in treating the characters with respect in terms of, why is the camera really on? Where would the camera be when it is on?
You can't manufacture the feeling of being in a small crowd and connecting on every single level to the very last person in the very last row in the back. I think when you evolve into a headlining act and things get bigger, the intimacy and some of that energy gets lost a little bit.
The Full Sail crowd, it's a pretty unique and a pretty distinct environment. It's very close quarters and a bit more of what I'm used to from my days on the independents. But the truth is, I sometimes think that it's harder to win over a small crowd sometimes than it is to win over a big crowd.
I think L.A. gets a bad rap. L.A. is the same as everywhere else.
Self-esteem and identity are very fragile things. I think a lot of times, those are the motivations for why people do take their own lives - not being seen, not being recognized, not being loved, not feeling supported, not feeling understood.
I think the stigma surrounding mental illness and also the stigma surrounding self-esteem issues or insecurities or just even feeling different is something that doesn't really get enough attention. Everybody struggles with feeling alone or that they are going through something they don't quite understand.
Los Angeles gets a very bad rap, the perception, especially by us Brits, is 'Oh, it's so fake,' but it's the antithesis!
I'd love to work on something that gets some type of critical respect. This business is sometimes so brutal - you work on something for months and really feel like the project is good and you're doing the best work you can, and then it just gets hammered by critics. It's such a bummer sometimes, because everything seems to build up to the release and a couple of bad reviews can make it seem like it was all a waste, which you know it wasn't.
Film is such a director's medium; you're really in their hands in terms of the real storytelling. As an actor, you can give a performance moment to moment and some of your takes will be used and some of them won't. I think there are great films you can make with bad performances, and vice versa. There are all combinations of those things. It's really down to the director what happens, I think, so that's why it's really good to work with very talented, bold directors.
If you can't stand your own company alone in a room for long hours, or, when it gets tough, the feeling of being in a locked cell, or, when it gets tougher still, the vague feeling of being buried alive-then don't be a writer.
I guess rap has such a bad name, because everybody can do it now, and that's probably why people don't want to be considered as rappers anymore, they're not taken seriously anymore. But yeah, rap is definitely the core of what I want to do. But I'm also an artist so I try to do as many things as I can, but I always keep rap in the equation.
So I really love this very difficult feeling of being completely out at sea. I don't know what I'm doing, and I kind of like this feeling. So I think for the moment, I'm going to continue to try and nail film down in some sort of shape where I'm happy with it.
Sometimes acting and politics make a very bad combination. I think that sometimes people take me less seriously in my work for the UN because I am an actor.
I've been a Christian for a long time, and I think that Christianity gets a bad rap. I think that people's perception of what a Christian is today is something that is close-minded and narrow, and that's not what I am.
That's very cool. Well, that's great. If I were to cater to Kanye, he would know that I'm catering to him. The fact that I make what I make - he gets it. He gets the quality and he respects it. And I think that's the key, why I work all the time is to do that. That's the fun.
People speak of the fear of the blank canvas as though it is a temporary hesitation, a trembling moment of self-doubt. For me it was more like being abducted from my bed by a clown, thrust into a circus arena with a wicker chair, and told to tame a pissed-off lion in front of an expectant crowd.