If you believe in what you’re doing, you should just do it. You’ll keep getting better.
Every time I step onto an airplane, I turn to the right and take a good, hard stare into the maw of the engine. I don’t know what I’m looking for. I just do it.
I still don’t really think about acting that much. I just do it.
I don’t know what the future is, but you just do it whilst it’s there, don’t you?
You have to lift your head up out of the mud and just do it.
You can accomplish so many things with a negative outlook and low self-esteem if you just do it over and over and over again.
This life is for us to discover the divine within. And that’s really the key to life in many ways for me. And the thing is, it’s not for us to reason why everything is what it is… just do it.
With the TV stuff, we usually hand in final, finished tracks. The turnaround time is so tight that there’s no time to demo anything; you just do it.
I have always felt that my career was not going to be a straight shot up, but more of a kind of rolling wave, so that I could raise my children. So I got pregnant when I was the head of production at a studio, and I became chairperson at a bigger studio when I was pregnant with my second daughter. You just do it!
One way I deal with stress is when I feel a certain way, I just do it. It’s like, I want a hamburger, so I’m just going to eat a hamburger. I don’t want to answer your phone call right now – I’m not going to answer your phone call. Just be able to say, ‘This is how I feel. This is the way it is, deal with it.’
When I make a film, I am hoping to reinvent the genre a little bit. I just do it my way. I make my own little Quentin versions of them… I consider myself a student of cinema. It’s almost like I am going for my professorship in cinema, and the day I die is the day I graduate. It is a lifelong study.
When I was a little girl my parents always told me do everything you want in an artistic way. If you want to draw, make a drawing. Just do it. And if you want to play piano, play piano. It was a very free childhood where everything was possible.
I’ve had people call me from bands that are very popular, and they’re like, ‘What do we do? We want to do what you do.’ It’s almost impossible to do what I do, because you would have to start in 1980. You can’t just do it.
Football is something I enjoy doing, something I’m well-paid to do, and obviously that’s a great privilege, but I’m just trying to be happy, and if there’s an opportunity to do something fun, then I’ll just do it. I don’t hold back; I just want to be a regular guy.
If you want to do something, just do it. No one is going to do it for you.
Young actors ask me for advice. They say, ‘Should I get an agent?’ I tell them, ‘Don’t worry about that. Act, act, act. Get into that production of ‘The Three Sisters’ in a church basement. Consider every audition a chance to act, even if it’s just for three minutes. Just do it whenever and wherever you can.’
Don’t edit yourself too much. Don’t be afraid of looking stupid, ‘cool’ is so rarely funny I think. And just do it! Do as many gigs as you possibly can, and watch as many gigs as you possibly can. You’ll get the rhythm of it in your head and make lovely friends.
I’m like Nike, just do it.
I am today’s youth. At 26, I understand their pulse. We don’t look for a reason to celebrate life. We just do it.
Do it no matter what. If you believe in it, it is something very honorable. If somebody around you or your family does not understand it, then that’s their problem. But if you do have a passion, an honest passion, just do it.
I don’t do albums for album sales. I just do it as a conversation piece and a business card.
At 13, I realized that I could fix anything electronic. It was amazing, I could just do it. I started a business repairing radios. It grew to be one of the largest in Philadelphia.
When you have a chance to get Phil Jackson to run your team, you just do it, plain and simple.
I’m not a writer. I think I can write short stories and poetry, but film writing, brilliant film writing, is a talent – you can’t just do it like that.
Lose your inhibitions about drawing and just do it.
If someone dares me to do something I’ll just do it.
People ask you all the time, ‘Why do you do this? Why don’t you quit, man, take your money and go home?’ I just do it because I love making music.
If you put music into your Vine, and it’s really jumpy, just do it over again.
When you appreciate something and you’re grateful for it – like going in to work everyday or just your partner or your job – you just do it that much better because you’re lucky that you’re doing it.
It’s nice just to be able to go out and, basically, be able to play other types of music and not have any pressure to almost explain it and justify why you did. I just do it because I like to have some fun.
When I started acting in my twenties, a director on the set of an action film shouted, ‘Just do it like your dad would.’ I couldn’t. I can only do things as I’d do them.
People think catching a football one-handed is a technique, but it’s more a reaction. Because you really don’t think about it when you’re doing it. You just do it. I couldn’t sit there and try to teach someone how to catch a one-handed football.
Technology has made music accessible in a philosophically interesting way, which is great. But on the other hand, when everybody has the ability to make magic, it’s like there’s no more magic – if the audience can just do it themselves, why are they going to bother?
The song ‘Bite the Thong’ in particular, with Damon Albarn, really encapsulates the whole dilemma of, ‘Hmm, should I stay on the underground when everybody else is selling out?’ Nowadays, you can just do it – have your name-brand clothes, do songs with rock n’ rollers – and it’s not considered selling out.
I just never have really been the kind of person that’s out in public being inappropriate, I guess. I like to have fun as much as the next person but I tend to do it in private and just hang out with close friends. If I’m going to go out, I’ll just do it with my really good friends.
What’s the reason I’m playing basketball? I do it because I love it, I do it because of my family, and that’s it. I don’t do it because of the money. I don’t do it because of the fame. I just do it because I love it, and I do it for my family because my family enjoys it.
Being an actor, in and of itself, is just hard. You have to just do it for its own sake.
Put on a camera and put on some whatever, and you’re an actor. Put me in a cage, I’m a fighter. Put me somewhere else – I’m in an ocean, I’m a surfer. I don’t know what I am, I just do it all. And I want to be good at everything.
We did a lot of that in drama school: intellectualising and maybe justifying your position. ‘I am a thinking actor and I have thought this through’ – well, just do it. I much prefer the doing aspect.
I’m a great believer that actors are very similar to session musicians. You wouldn’t ask a session musician, ‘How do you play jazz,’ and then, ‘How do you play classical?’ They just do it, because if they don’t do it, they don’t eat.
Endurance training is so mental. You just do it. You just can, and you just will, and you just run that far because, you know, I get tired at the first mile. I feel heavy and all of those things, but now I have developed, it’s hard to explain… It’s a very satisfying place to get into.
I have a stationary bike that I do twice a week, but I’m not really serious about it. I just do it until I get tired. And then I have a step thing that I really hate. It’s hard on your knees. I have a treadmill that keeps getting stuck. It’s nice to have equipment around, though, because you can sit on it anytime.
I don’t like talking about climbing that much. You don’t have to discuss; just do it.
But I always held my music up and protected it from compromise. So I just do it for my friends. I’ve written hundreds of songs, and I’m sure I have a few albums worth of songs.
I’d listen to a song and say, ‘Hang on, I like that piano thing,’ so I’d play the guitar like that and get the vibe from it, and it just evolved from the get-go. It was pretty obvious what to do; You don’t think about rock n’ roll: you just do it.
Always make sure you have your rent. At the end of the month, if you have to eat Ramen for a week because you won’t have your rent money, just do it but make sure your rent is all there so you’re not stressing about that. As long as you have your rent at least you have somewhere to live.
I feel so lucky and so privileged that I like writing for myself. Like, I don’t have to wait for somebody to create a part for me or a project for me. I can just do it. And that’s so great.
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