A Quote by Naomi Campbell
When I started out modeling, there weren't casting directors and there weren't stylists, so you just dealt directly with the designer. We were all much closer back then.
Related Quotes
When I started out modeling, there weren’t casting directors and there weren’t stylists, so you just dealt directly with the designer. We were all much closer back then...
I never looked at magazines before I started modeling. I was 13 or 14 and none of my friends were into magazines. We were into the fashion of the day, though. Designer jeans were really popular - Sasson, Gloria Vanderbilt, Calvin Klein, Jordache. Once I started modeling, I began to learn about these things, and magazines helped me to understand who was who.
When I first started out, it was very, very difficult to even get in the room with directors or casting directors because they would see that I hadn't been to drama school and wouldn't want to see me. Now, I feel like it's changing. We have this new generation of a lot of writers, directors and actors who are just breaking through, and they're doing it for the passion.
I actually started modeling in Ethiopia, because that's where I grew up, and I started out by just doing little fashion shows for school, and I liked it so much that I started pursuing it.
Those first memories of my modeling career are not my favorite. At the beginning, it was tough. I was very lucky, my career took off very quickly, but still. All the memories I have about first casting in general - they're not nice. Just because there's so many girls, so much competition. I don't blame those casting directors, they see so many girls and they can't be nice to everybody. But you don't feel like a person, you feel like a number.
My plan was to model and pay the rent and then intern with designers and work on the other side of the industry however I could, but then it just got to be too much, especially with casting, fashion week, and also working for a fashion designer.
I did a bit of modeling before I took up acting, and I was up for this big campaign - I can't remember which designer - and all these execs were looking at my portfolio. Then one said: 'We'd like to use you, but can you come back next year when you've lost this.' And he tapped the underside of his chin.
When I started modeling at 15, there were no provisions for on-set tutors, and so I dropped out of school. Although I was one of the lucky ones who went on to a successful career as a model, as a child I should never have been forced to make that choice - between modeling and education.
Casting director was a part-time thing, which later became a full-time job because there was a lack of casting directors in our industry and people were looking for professionals to do it.
Of course, even if the directors like my ideas or the designs I do, they may end up changing the story so much, that those characters have to change, or get cut out altogether, and that's just the way it is. Sometimes the directors are designers themselves, or they want to work with a character designer who will do things in their own distinct way - sometimes the most important thing I do is figure out what they don't want to do, by experimenting. Either way, whether they use my ideas or not, I get paid, so it's all good.
If you work in casting, it's sort of not cool to want to act. A lot of people think that casting directors are frustrated actors, but it wasn't true with any of the casting people I knew.
Suddenly, I realized how tough trying to structure a story like this is. It was a lot of work. The one big advantage that we had was that we had eight scripts written before we started shooting, or even started casting. We had a really good opportunity to look at it and figure out where we were going to go and how to do it. Once we got a cast, which I love, then we started doing some revisions to make sure that they fit into it.
By the time 'Abdullah' released, I had already been offered three roles. Word about me just spread. I started getting calls directly from producers and directors.
I was modeling while I was in university and my agency said, 'There's this fashion campaign, can you go?' And I didn't want to; I told him I wanted to focus on my acting, but I ended up going, kind of dragging my feet, and it turns out, the casting director for it was the casting director for Lars von Trier's new movie.
Making photographs that dealt with the understanding of who I am as a gay man and dealt with the process of accepting that, and also accepting what I'm into sexually, what sexually arouses me. So I was making these images not necessarily knowing what they were about, but just putting it out there - that mode of thinking or consideration of my own desires, and also the much larger conversation around images that deal with ideas of sexuality and how those images are distributed and then accepted or understood by whoever is viewing those images.
When I came to Mumbai, I was working behind the scenes for 10 long years. Back then, music video budgets were insignificant and I had no assistant directors or art directors for most of the songs I directed.
Related Authors
Ashley Graham Quotes
American
Model
Chrissy Teigen Quotes
American
Model
Christy Turlington Quotes
American
Model
Coco Rocha Quotes
Canadian
Model
Emily Ratajkowski Quotes
British
Model
Gigi Hadid Quotes
American
Model
Gisele Bundchen Quotes
Brazilian
Model
Grace Jones Quotes
Jamaican
Model
Heidi Klum Quotes
German
Model
Irina Shayk Quotes
Russian
Model
Jerry Hall Quotes
American
Model
Kate Moss Quotes
English
Model
Miranda Kerr Quotes
Australian
Model
Nina Agdal Quotes
Danish
Model
Tara Stiles Quotes
American
Model
Tyra Banks Quotes
American
Model