The fact that I get to play a queer Filipino on television and another queer character in 'Crazy Rich Asians' is huge. I never thought I'd have a career being myself. I always thought that being an actor in Hollywood meant that I would have to put that side of me on the back burner.
A lot of artists I like end up being queer. Or maybe it's a subconscious thing that you can identify of, like, 'Oh this person understands the nuances of the romantic narrative of a queer person, or the social narrative of a queer person.' And then you discover, lo and behold that they are a queer person.
I just felt that I might to go to university and get some real life. It wasn't stimulating in the same way. I loved being at Bristol, but I missed the thrill of being on set.
I'm queer - and queer, to me, is not being stuck in a binary and being kind of fluid.
The thrill of acting is making a character real. Modeling is the opposite of real. It's being fake in front of the camera.
I am pansexual as I actually remember also being attracted to women as well and thinking that maybe this like, thing where I was attracted to men was just like some weird phase or if it was something I could just ignore. My mom is queer and I have a queer uncle. So, I wasn't completely, you know, shielded from queer representation.
When I first started to write, I was aware of being queer, but I didn't write about it. Queer poems would probably not have been accepted by the editors I sent them to.
Art is not ideology. It is completely impossible to explain art on the basis of the homological relation that it is supposed to maintain with the real of history. The aesthetic process decentres the specular relation with which ideology perpetuates its closed infinity. The aesthetic effect is certainly imaginary; but this imaginary is not the reflection of the real, since it is the real of this reflection.
I like ambiguity. I think it's so much more interesting to play than an overtly good or an overtly evil person.
I think I first learned about Stonewall in Queer Theatre class at the University of Pittsburgh. It made me mad that queer people out at bars could be raided and arrested and harassed by the police just for being who they were.
I was on MTV's 'Real World' at the time when 'Queer Eye' came out. I remember, the first time I won an award, I got the award, and they were like, 'It's a tie! With 'Queer Eye!'' I never thought that I would one day follow in their footsteps.
It's just plain learning something that you didn't know. There is a real aesthetic experience in being dumbfounded.
I read everything and anything related to being queer. I found solace in reading authors like Audre Lorde and bell hooks, who would become my activist staples - their words helped me grow up and taught me how to be bold and courageous. By studying them, I came to understand that being young and queer and black would not be easy.
For me, I think it's important to spread Black queer joy and acknowledge Black queer excellence and the achievements that have been made by my people, specifically meaning Black queer people.
Aesthetics has become too important to be left to the aesthetes. To succeed, hard-nosed engineers, real estate developers, and MBAs must take aesthetic communication, and aesthetic pleasure, seriously. We, their customers, demand it.
The greatest thrill is that moment when a thousand people are sitting in the dark, looking at the same scene, and they are all apprehending something that has not been spoken. That's the thrill of it, the miracle - that's what holds us to movies forever. It's what we wish we could do in real life.