The Talks
Yuto Horigome: “I have to push myself”
Yuto, as a two-time gold medal winning Olympic champion, do you think skateboarding is in your DNA?
Maybe, yes! My dad was also a skateboarder, and so when he was growing up, he would go skating just at the local park. Not a skate park, but a regular park. All the skaters were there, and I was there too, following my dad, watching at first, but then sometimes when my dad was finished skating, he would put me on the board. That was my first memory of skateboarding, my dad holding me up on the board when I was just a baby.
Is there a big skateboarding culture in your native Japan?
I feel like Japan has a pretty good community for skateboarding, but it’s not like America. There’s still a cool culture but it’s not as big. The generation before me is really the one that really started the street culture and the skating community. I learned a lot from them over the past few years. It's definitely up there, and it’s continuing to grow and expand really quickly.
“For the first 20 years in my career all I did was add things; more courses, more silverware, more ingredients, adding, adding, adding. Only like three years ago or so I was able to really start focusing on removing and felt confident to do so. I finally created a dish where for the first time I felt like I achieved what I tried to do for 23 years.”
“It’s still astounding to me that I have one Oscar, let alone two. Especially because it’s by-product of something that you love so much, it feels like that’s already the gift, that’s already the award.”
“I struggled a lot. That was the reason I became a champion. A lot of people give up, a lot of people feel sorry for themselves. But I didn't.”
“I try to look at things more from the perspective that everything is happening for us, not to us. And so whatever challenges that were occurring at the time, perhaps they were happening just so this moment could happen.”
“During my career I was blessed to be able to constantly be motivated and constantly be pushing myself, because otherwise I never would have achieved what I did.”
“I think at a certain point, you arrive to a kind of maturity that allows you to swim more freely. And when you touch that state, playing with your unconscious, it's very beautiful when you when you experience that moment.”
“I am not that interested at the moment to work for the sake of others, I’m not interested in doing commissions. I'm way more interested in creating art for art's sake and in order to do that I have to believe in myself.”
“Happiness for me is just being; just being at any given moment. If you are searching for happiness, you are not happy. It’s the pot at the end of the rainbow.”
“I’m 80 years old now, and little by little over your lifetime you begin to understand things that you didn’t understand earlier.”
“To have those magical moments, the ones that require real trust or bravery or letting go, you’ve really gotta swing for the rafters! You’ve got to try and hit it out the park — although you might miss. You’re always trying to hit it into the rafters, and damn the consequences if you don’t make it.”
“I remember driving in New York in 1976 and I put the brakes on quickly because there was the very, very first Vogue cover that I ever shot. Big, on a bus shelter! And I remember just pulling over and just staring at it. At that point it was a real dream to see one of your pictures there. I’d always dreamed of doing a Vogue cover!”
“You better make every moment count. Live your life now; start in the morning. You mustn’t sit around waiting to die.”
“Most people make art and movies as a job and if a lot of people go to see it they make money and that is their sign of success. I am not making judgment here, but their goal is strictly business-oriented. I don't do this as a business.”
“Once I commit to an idea, then I just move forward with it, no matter what. And that's always how I've operated when it comes to my art. I'm kind of tenacious in that way, even if it takes a lifetime, eventually I will make that thing.”
“I think the mark of a great song, photo or a painting is something you can remember. It’s kind of that simple. If you work at it, there will be times when the intangible becomes tangible and for a moment… You are a wizard.”
“I think I will stop working when I am finally satisfied… And I cannot see that in the foreseeable future. The urge to do better and even better than that is what pushes me forward.”
“There is something in leaving this place better than where you have left it, working on yourself, doing things with other people, there is something in that that feels right, deep in your core. I go with that.”
“Filmmaking is never anything less than a beautiful gift. I've been doing this forever, and as hard as it may be, it's never let me down. I have such a will to make these movies!”
“You can catch ideas at a deeper level when you start meditating. Intuition grows, and intuition is the number one tool for an artist – feeling and thinking combined. The ideas are flowing, and the feeling that you can get it to feel correct. You know what that is. It’s a knowingness that grows. It’s really beautiful.”
“You’ve got to actually write it. You’ve got to actually sit there and do it, it can’t just be about the experience. Lots of people have fantastic experiences in life, but don’t have any inclination to put pen to paper.”
“As a photographer, as long as I remain truthful with myself in the transaction, as long as I maintain a level of empathy for my humanity in that process, then what is being translated back is honest and the transaction is not objectified.”
“We’re going after it. We’re going after what we believe and what we deserve and we’re not taking the back seat anymore. I see an improvement in the way that we as women are standing together and paving the way for the next generations. It’s time for that.”- “I dreamed of winning the Olympics since I was nine years old. That was definitely the most memorable race of my career. But the next day I woke up, and I wanted to win the next race.”
“My work is integrated completely into my life and vice-versa – I’ve been working since I was 16. My work is my life and my life is my work. It made me who I am.”
“You don’t think of your roles as achievements. You think of the roles you play, the paintings you’ve made. I mean, imagine an actor saying, “I don’t want to go on anymore because I can’t do better than the last movie I made. I might as well quit now.” We’d call that resting on your laurels.”
“I do not consider architecture as art, nor do I consider architects to be artists. However, I do have a strong desire to improve the purity of my expression and put a strong message into my architecture so that I can call it art!”
“One day, if you have a little bit of talent and a lot of hard work, you’re going to find out who you are.”
“As a director, what I hope is to create situations where the actors will be able to be alive like real people even in the context of something that is quite manufactured.”
“I feel like the best art comes from a sense of necessity and urgency, like I can't help but talk about this.”
“I think the final circle in being an artist is connecting, making some conversation to the world you’re in. I think if you have that feeling of why you need to do something, you’ll find a way. And I think that really takes you forward!”
“I am very grateful for the films I’ve made. I’ve been able to make movies for $1 million and I’ve been able to make movies for $195 million. I can do what I want in different sizes for different reasons. I have been able to do 10 more movies than I thought I would ever make!”- “Over the course of my life, I have sacrificed love, private life, and time for me, all on the altar of work. But I have also created an empire that is important for so many.”
“I always want to take a human portrait. My goal in life is always to enter into everything with great care and with great humanity.”
“What I am looking for in this world is a sense of not feeling alone, and that’s one of the greatest gifts you can give to another person. I hope that my work does that. I hope that when people leave the theater they feel less alone.”
“There’s only one of you in the world. No one else is like you and that's a superpower.”
“I want to make classical instruments sound unexpected. Constructing it yourself means that you don’t need to do so much so that it sounds like yours. You know it’s the only one. It’s yours. You own the sound.”
“I discovered early on that I’m the kind of person that experiments and makes mistakes but then it’s all worth it because once in a blue moon it hits home.”
“There's going to be a moment where your work challenges you, where you’re at your limit… But if that deep love is really there, you're not going to abandon it. You are going to give your all to it!”
“I have a responsibility that lasts a lifetime with my children. They know that I love my work, and they know how I go about it. And I hope that they find work that they love, because nothing can compare to watching your child succeed.”
“The bottom line in the end is to grab the heart of the audience and talk to them directly and tell them: "I share with you my soul and my heart."”
Emerging MastersJesse Jenkins: “You get another chance every day”
Jesse, as a chef, apparently you sometimes wake up in the morning thinking about what pan you’re going to cook in before you even know what you’re having for breakfast. Do you have to live, breathe, and dream this job in order to find success in the food industry?
I think it makes life easier if you're one hundred percent into what you're trying to do, sure. I think when you can have that admiration for something, you'll do better at making something about it. But you also don't need to know everything either; you just have to really be into it. If you're a fan, you're going to do even better. So when I wrote my cookbook Cooking with Vegetables, I had to ask myself, is this about me knowing everything, or is this about how much I love food and cooking? I think that’s why I’ve done well with my cooking videos on Instagram, because as much as I am a cook, I also fucking love this job. I love cooking, and I love making videos. It doesn’t have to do with what’s right or technically correct, it’s more just me being a fan and what my take is on a dish.
Both cooking and making videos have been a part of your professional life even before you started your Instagram channel, Another Day in Paradise, right?
Yeah, I mean, growing up in LA, I always wanted to be a professional skateboarder. That's just all I wanted to do. I started skateboarding — I didn't do competitions, we did what was called street skating. So my friends and I, we would just drive around in traffic with a bunch of other kids and film ourselves skateboarding at night, or making videos of ourselves doing tricks, things like that. So although my passion was skateboarding, the actual job was about what music we were using, what cameras we were using, how it was going to look. There was no Instagram or YouTube, so you’d get this bootleg tape and go around to skate shops and drop this tape off. Later on, I kept up with photography and started working as a fashion photographer, directing music videos, I was still so obsessed with taking pictures. But I’d also worked for a stint in restaurants, as a busboy, a waiter, a line cook, so I would supplement my income with cheffing.
David Gelb: “Our approach is to build trust”
Viviane Sassen: “It takes time to find your voice”
Santiago Lastra: “If you love it, it’s worth it”
Bruce Gilden: “Criticism always motivates me”
Hugh Grant: “It has to give you a thrill”
Ramin Djawadi: “Let emotions lead the way”
Brian Tyree Henry: “It reminds me that I’m alive”
David Cronenberg: “You are revealing many things”
