Dance Interviews

“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."”

“In the moment when you’re designing a building, it’s the subject. One year later, when you just go back and see it, it’s the object. It becomes part of the city. It starts to sit where it should be sitting.”

“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.”

“From the beginning, I wanted to protect the clothes themselves from fashion, and at the same time protect the woman’s body. I wanted people to keep on wearing my clothes for at least 10 years or more.”

“Art is about finding creativity in the normal gutter next to you. To see the potential in something where there is no potential in terms of how society sees it is often where art or creativity is a great tool. It’s about making the impossible possible.”

“Making a movie comes with a great deal of joy, an incredible amount of hard work and equal amounts of stress, pressure, fun, and anxiety. But ultimately it’s extremely rewarding! I have the best job in the world.”

“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.”

“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 believe anyway that the prime-time for every work of art exists in the time in which it was done. After that it’s transformation, continuous transformation.”

“I think we've all lived through the pandemic and it has awakened in all of us a concept of time, and how fleeting our time is and can be... I want to apply my energy doing good and creating and hopefully not squandering that. That's what I live for.”

“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.”

“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.”

“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’ve learned not to look at sales reports. I used to, but if I had listened to sales reports at the beginning, I would have given up on things that are some of our biggest successes now.”

“The thing I’ve gathered more of over the years is a self-confidence that’s to do with having done work that people have liked.”

“I’m using my skills to create architecture that serves humanity. I’m talking about creating space for you so that you can feel comfortable, space that supports your work and activity.”

“Art is something that you do – you can't not do it. If I made money doing it, I would do it; if I didn't make any money, I would do it.”

“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 want to be an authentic person. I start to feel that it’s a mission. I am not going to hold back on an opinion I have about something; I don’t know what the point of that would be.”

“I can’t make people happy if I’m not happy myself. That applies to anyone who tries to achieve something in their life: if you’re not happy, you can’t transfer any happiness”

“I hope the scale of my works is way bigger than what you see. I hope they live in you.”

“I started a very nice career, became quite successful, and at age 40 I won this prize. But when I got that prize, I realized that I hadn’t yet found my own language of cooking. So I got on my knees and gathered all the tools from my childhood and started working very hard on that. And that’s how it started.”

“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.”

“To do something no one else has ever done, it’s satisfying, but the thing is nobody else is really playing the game of free solo climbing, so it's easy to win when no one else plays, you know?”

“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.”

“If I pass away one day, I am happy because I tried to do my best. My sport allowed me to do so much.”

“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.”

“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.”

“Every time you hear a piece of music that you’ve written, you remember the joy of it. Even if you don’t remember exactly what the writing process was like, there’s a moment where you hear it and your heart is full. It’s a similar emotion like when you are in love with someone, you feel that internal joy.”

“I live from my heart. I am not a cerebral person. I will never be. I am 55 years old. I will continue doing things the way I have done them my whole life.”

“I think it’s just been a long slow burn. I’ve worked fairly consistently, and I’m really grateful — even for the years of not getting so many acting jobs because that means I really appreciate being able to do what I love now.”

“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.”

“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.”

“When I swing and miss with a movie or a play, it’s life or death for me. I feel I don’t have any value, that there is no reason someone would want to be friends with me, that kind of thing… I think that is something that’s not going to change, so I try to use it as motivation.”

“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’m doing something that I love, and I consider that to be success. But if you think it’s gonna come fast or easy, then you probably are in for some rough times. You need to always be ready to throw things out and do it over again, and know that you love the process enough to be doing it repeatedly. Always be in love with the process and in love with your talent. And know that you’re going to keep doing it because it’s what you love doing.”

“I take everything as seriously as the next thing. I don't differentiate or have a level of commitment based on the kind of project that it is. I believe that there's an equal measure in one role versus another role.”

“After winning an Oscar, there’s an alertness to what you’re thinking or doing or saying. I feel like there’s an aliveness to the experience that wasn’t as attuned previously.”

“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.”

“You better make every moment count. Live your life now; start in the morning. You mustn’t sit around waiting to die.”