I cannot tell you that I ever fell in love with the theater as an audience. I fell in love with the theater as an actor for a period of time, but I have struggled as an audience, and I struggle more now than then. I was always a movie guy.
I always hope that people feel less alone when they see a movie that I make. That some part of the story played out on the big screen will resonate for individuals in the audience in a way that gives them comfort.
That's the kind of movie that I like to make, where there is an invented reality and the audience is going to go someplace where hopefully they've never been before. The details, that's what the world is made of.
Fortunately, it doesn't seem to have made a lot of difference to my audience that I'm as bald as a billiard ball!
Movies require a lot of patience. I like instant results. If I have done something that's not funny at all, the audience will let me know in two seconds. With the movie, I will have to wait nine months to know if I was that bad.
It's crazy how the world evolves and the audience gives you an opportunity to really grow and live out your dreams.
There are so many low points with stand-up. You are perpetually humiliated, so it doesn't really matter anymore. I don't have any dignity left to lose. An audience can't hurt you anymore when you've been completely dismantled.
As a songwriter, that's really what you hope for - to make that connection with your audience.
The key is to constantly keep the audience surprised. If they feel like something is going to happen, or they think from an educational standpoint that something is about to happen because of all the moving parts, it is your job to break that expectation and show the audience something different.
When I sing, I feel like when you're first in love. It's more than sex. It's that point two people can get to they call love, when you really touch someone for the first time, but it's gigantic, multiplied by the whole audience. I feel chills.
From my standpoint, being an artist, I want to see what the new construction is between artist and audience.
Maybe just as many women writers as male writers could be billed as the next great American writer by their publisher. Maybe book criticism sections could review an equal amount of female and male writers. Maybe Oprah could start putting some books by women authors in her book club, since most of her audience is women.
I don't want to make 'Chandni Bar 2.' I didn't think 'Fashion 2' will happen. If a film ends on a high note... makes the audience think and lingers in the end... that is needed.
Since my 'Crown of Midnight' tour in 2013, we've had such a rapid jump in audience numbers that we've had to move to bigger venues, cap events, and find new and creative ways to keep the line flowing while still allowing me the chance to chat with each person, which will always be very, very important to me.
When you're making the film, you don't really think the audience; it's only when you start editing that you really start to became aware of your audience because you're thinking of how you communicate these ideas, and how lucid can you be, and yet stay within the language you've established.
We're expanding 'Ebony' and 'Jet' on the digital side to attract and maintain a younger audience.
The first audience that you have when writing a book is you.
I much prefer doing comedy. I get a little paranoid when the audience is not laughing.
I don't really look at the charts at all. If anything, I try to out-do what I've done before. I try to make music that I like and I trust my own judgement with what will work with a wider audience. If you compare yourself to the charts, you lose perspective on what you're doing and why you're doing it.
Also, most people read fiction as an escape - and I wonder whether my books aren't a bit too grounded in reality to reach the widest possible audience.
I'm used to being the only black guy. I've seriously walked onstage, looked out in the audience, 15,000 people - and I'm the only one in the place. It's no big deal. My whole career's been like that.
I think often I learn the most from other people's mistakes. If I'm in the audience watching an actor and thinking, 'I don't believe you,' I spend the rest of the play working out why I don't believe them.
Ballet has a very small audience, unfortunately.
A filmmaker chooses an actress keeping the best interest of the film in mind. If he doesn't cast you, it doesn't mean there's a personal agenda. Change is constant, and if you have agreed to be part of this industry, you will have to go with the change. The films and filmmakers, even the audience has changed.
If you're a content brand, you have to be in every place your audience is. Sometimes your audience is on the couch and wants to watch a 30-minute show, and sometimes they're checking their Facebook feed and want to see something that's only a minute long.
I know having a social media profile removed is a 21st century privileged problem - but it is the way a lot of us live. These profiles mimic our physical selves and a lot of the time are even more important. They are ways to connect with an audience, to start discussion, and to create change.
I do movies that I would like to go and see. I think that's a good barometer of how I choose films. I like going to these movies. Our job is to make sure the audience gets their $16 worth. That's my job.
Air America has tanked because it features a bunch of talentless, angry demagogues who wouldn't know how to entertain a radio audience if their lives depended on it.
MTV refers to its audience as 'the demo.' Being 'in the demo' means being in the demographic sweet spot that advertisers want their programming to hit, which is ideally between 18 and 24.
If you're going to act and do this for a living, you want to play something that the audience didn't expect.
I never doubted my talent. If talent was the circus, then I was its ringmaster and audience, applauding its every move.
If a movie has more characters than an audience can keep track of, the audience will get confused and lose interest in the story.
To me, the real thrill is in making the music, and then I just trust it to find its own audience, and at times it's big and at times it's small, but that's beyond my control.
I can't see what's wrong about assuming intelligence in your audience and what's bad news about being rewarded for assuming that.
There are two kinds of magic. If you think of it like martial arts, there's sparring, where you are doing it with a partner, and the other is kata, where you're doing an exposition for the audience.
My audience is God.
