A Quote by Tananarive Due

I characterize myself a little bit as a reluctant filmmaker. I learned from watching my friend in college stay up late at night, at 2 A.M., just to get the lighting right, and I thought, 'You know what, if that's what it's going to be like, I think I'm just going to write,' and I did that.
Draft night for me - I watched it in my dorm in college. And it started off with just me and a friend, because I knew I probably wasn't going to get picked right away. I thought it was going to be a little later. But, you know, you watch the whole thing. You never know what might happen, so you gotta watch.
Honestly, I was just happy to get the work. I was chuffed to bits. I know David Furnish and Elton John a bit and I remember David talking very excitedly about it. This was going back four or five years even, when we were doing Little Britain at the Hammersmith Apollo. I'd lost my voice that night, but still did the show. I remember thinking: "God, they're going to think that's my voice and I'm not going to get in the film!" But it's just been a pleasure to be a part of.
By about age 12, I would prefer to stay up and watch the stars than go to sleep. I started learning. I started going to the library and reading. But it was initially just watching the stars from my bedroom that I really did. There was just nothing as interesting in my life as watching the stars every night.
I've always been on the outside of all that political stuff so I just sort of watch it and I'm appalled and I think people should be screaming about a lot of things right now and they're not. They're just letting everything happen. I don't know. At some point the wheels are going to come off and we're going to have a real problem. The people are going to get angry and it's going to be too late.
I tried to get into college, but I think I'm going to wait a little bit for that because I'm just so busy.
Email is a mind-killer. Like, I really think getting a smartphone is the worst move I ever did in being a musician because while we've just been talking my phone's vibrated like 15 times and I only get push notifications for like two apps, so either like a bunch of houses are going up for sale right now or someone's like, "Why aren't you emailing me back?" It's just hard to stay in the moment. I can understand why people go to retreats to write and stuff like that but I don't have the time.
I was not going to be an actor. I was an engineer in physics. That's what I did: I graduated with a physics degree, and I had become a little bit distressed that I'd have to work for somebody - anybody! And I thought, "I'm not going to make a mark on anything. If I can't express myself, then I don't know what the heck I'm going to do with this life." I think it was just one of those germs that said, "No, no, no, you've got to say things. You've got to tell people things. You've got to express your opinion in this life, because that's how you started."
If I sleep in and don't run, I'll feel a little bit off because I didn't do what I was supposed to do. But I'm not going to beat myself up because of it. I'll just get right back on track.
For 'A Little Night Music,' I did try to get little bit more beefed up for that because I thought that would help me carry myself around the stage in that character.
It's just so weird coming into the gym and not feeling like, you know, 'I'm going to die.' Before it was like, 'I've got to hit that routine or I'm going to get yelled at.' So it's just been really nice to kind of relax a little bit and be able to really focus on gymnastics and get to enjoy it more.
think people get scared that they’re not going to be able to do it perfectly - they’re going to be criticized - they’re going to be like, “Well, I’m not totally green.” Well, you know what? At this point we don’t care... Just a shade of green is enough right now. Move a little bit closer towards this. Because the more people start moving closer and closer to it, that’s something that collectively makes a difference.
I think people just want to be popular. So they're going to write lyrics that are going to get your attention. You know, sometimes, they're a little graphic, and I don't think that's so necessary.
We were the ultimate consumers of the thing, and we thought, "Every college kid is going to go berserk. High school kids - it will introduce them to music they didn't know about. This is going to be a phenomenon." Plus, it seemed like it was insider-y, yet it was available to everyone. I thought, "Cable companies are going to be snatching this up." You think about the dreck that is on so many cable companies, of course they're going to love this. And we were just crushed that nobody cared.
Even in the minor leagues, I just said I'll get my little bit of time in here and then get out of here. I was going to try, though. I wasn't going to just give up. I was always going to try. I'm here. I figured I might as well try.
We kind of just got more mature and more realistic with what we're doing. We kinda said, "We quit our jobs and we quit college to do this, and we're going to be playing these songs every day just about, y'know, on a stage... so let's write songs that we're never gonna get sick of playing." Songs that aren't just gonna follow a trend of what's going on right now, y'know?
I just said, 'I need to do something because staying up and watching YouTube and late night TV is not cool,' so I just decided to write a script.
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