Dance Interviews

Alexander Ekman: “My view of success has changed”

Benjamin Millepied: “It’s not a matter of perfection”

Crystal Pite: “The consonance rings true”

Damien Jalet: “It’s a leap of faith”

Julian MacKay: “That’s just a part of me”

Nicoletta Manni: “There’s always more to discover”

Ohad Naharin: “What is this something else?”

Sergei Polunin: “It’s like being in the army”

Sharon Eyal: “The story comes from inside the body”

Tiler Peck: “I’ve always been a storyteller”

Wayne McGregor: “I see beauty in the dysfunctional”

William Forsythe: “No one has any idea what really works”
ACHIEVEMENT
- “The guys who are real artists are people who have figured out the art of living; their art is art because they live. They have made living an art, they have made an art of living. They are constantly inputting life as opposed to expressing life.”Bill MurrayActor
- “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.”Al PacinoActor
- “I’ve learned that with time also comes pleasure: the pleasure of creating but also upholding the legacy that’s been passed down to me.”Anne-Sophie PicChef
- “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.”Giorgio ArmaniFashion designer
- “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.”Gary PlayerAthlete
- “I consider myself a storyteller. I feel that is what good directors do, they are really just following criteria: is this a good story? Is this the story I want to tell? All we’re trying to do is the hard task of making interesting, thought-provoking films.”Spike LeeFilm director
- “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.”Kevin CostnerActor
- “I think for me in my life, the most useful thing that I aspire to be is just being as self-aware and as honest with myself as possible. I think if you’re doing that then probably everything else will follow.”Daniel RadcliffeActor
- “The game of basketball means everything. This is love. Definitely love. I had to practice and I had to make sacrifices, but basketball has given me so much.”LeBron JamesAthlete
- “It’s everything you need, but nothing extra. It’s what's essential. It’s a minimum state which you achieve when you can't add or subtract… It’s sort of this perfect state, that’s what I'm looking for.”John PawsonArchitect
- “If I pass away one day, I am happy because I tried to do my best. My sport allowed me to do so much.”PeléAthlete
- “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.”Adrien BrodyActor
- “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.”Norman Jean RoyPhotographer
- “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.”Nils FrahmMusician
- “Although sometimes I feel tired and think I ought to give it up, I don’t want to just retire. No, I enjoy it all and you just keep going until the day comes when you can’t do it anymore.”Anthony HopkinsActor
- “The success of translating an idea into action is very often where the talent is to be found. If you can give a body to the idea, I think you are onto a very interesting process.”Olafur EliassonArtist
- “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.”Julian SchnabelArtist
- “I knew what felt instinctively right for me, and I pursued that throughout my entire career. It’s the way I live; it’s the way I work. Everything that I’ve done and everything that I have is an extension of my personal taste.”Calvin KleinFashion designer
- “We have such a short time on this earth, and when you give that opportunity to somebody younger, and they pass it on to the next generation… That’s real success.”Dominique CrennChef
- “You can’t measure something like who is the best chef in the world. Whether I’m the best or not, no one can really say. However, my restaurant elBulli was certainly the most influential restaurant in the world.”Ferran AdriàChef
- “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”Ferran AdriàChef
- “When you are in a very, very tough moment of a day and have a lot of frustration because nothing is happening right—but you don’t give up—and suddenly that happens! That’s almost a transcendental thing.”Alejandro IñárrituFilm director
- “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.”Antonio BanderasActor
- “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.”Chiwetel EjioforActor
- “I think all the roles of my career have presented me with opportunities for my own personal growth. Roles that really push you out of your comfort zone, it really helps you to grow, and it then brings you greater capacity for love within yourself and love for others.”Demi MooreActor
- “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.”Benedict CumberbatchActor
- “I’m 80 years old now, and little by little over your lifetime you begin to understand things that you didn’t understand earlier.”Francis Ford CoppolaFilm director
- “It’s the rollercoaster ride of doing something creative: when it goes well and you enjoy the process then it’s a high and you just want to keep on doing it.”Christian BaleActor
- “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.”Ian McKellenActor
- “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.”Dwayne JohnsonActor
- “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.”Julian SchnabelArtist
- “Somehow at the end of the day doing something that actually resonates with people is quite rewarding and keeps me going.”Hans ZimmerFilm composer
- “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!”Tadao AndoArchitect
- “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.”Wes AndersonFilm director
- “There’s only one of you in the world. No one else is like you and that's a superpower.”Noomi RapaceActor
- “I just try to live my life and just be who I am. If people really accept me they have to accept me as I am, you know what I mean? My highs and my lows and my vulnerabilities… It's who I am as a human being.”Mike TysonAthlete
- “It's important for a novelist to use the imagination like a musician, a composer or a painter would, in a kind of non-logical way. I think it’s very important for me to not just become a kind of intellectual writer.”Kazuo IshiguroAuthor
- “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.”Massimo BotturaChef
- “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.”David ChipperfieldArchitect
- “When I was younger I used to have more anxiousness to obtain things. But there are moments in which you obtain those things and then you relax.”Antonio BanderasActor