I don’t consider myself a political comedian because it’s so hard. It takes time away from me saying terrible things about TV.
I’ve been in the newspapers since I was about 15 – not for rapping, but for real substantive stuff I was doing in the community, organizing around gang violence in the schools. So I had already made my grandma proud before I was on TV. I’ve always been who I am.
I’m always trying to make something that is impossible to film. Why would somebody just read a novel when they can see it on TV or in the cinema? I really have to think of the things fiction can do that film can’t and play to the strengths of the novel. With a novel, you can get right inside somebody’s head.
Link-ups go hand-in-hand with TV shows. You do a show and you get linked with your co-star.
TV is so different from the movies. It takes a lot of stamina because you work such long hours. It is really challenging. You are learning the next day’s lines while you are shooting today’s scenes. I found courage I never realised I had. I hope to do more.
I’m really happy to bring bisexuality to TV because you don’t see that often on television, especially with women.
TV does not care about you or what happens to you. It’s downright bad for your health now, and that’s not a far-out concept. I think watching the TV news is bad for you. It is bad for your physical health and your mental health.
Ugh – I wish I could just sit back and watch TV sometimes.
My father wouldn’t get us a TV, he wouldn’t allow a TV in the house.
Most Americans don’t think about antitrust law when they look at their cable bill, flip channels on TV, or worry about what their favorite website knows about them. But they should.
My friends were amazed that I became a TV presenter. I was not a big talker at school – I never liked people seeing my braces, so I walked around with my sleeves pulled over my hands and my hands over my mouth in case anybody saw me smiling.
I didn’t watch a lot of TV growing up.
I know so many people who actually just watch television on their computers now and don’t even really watch their TV anymore.
Strangely enough, when the Sugababes’ ‘Freak Like Me’ went to number 1, which was built around my ‘Are ‘Friends’ Electric’ song, I had another song called ‘Rip’ go to number 1 in the Kerrang TV chart, so I was pulling new people in from very different areas of musical interest. That was quite an amazing week.
My every birthday wish was, ‘I want to someday be on TV.’
Offers have to be really interesting for me to take them up either in movies or TV.
When I was kid, I remember playing ‘Vogue’ by Madonna over and over and over again. And ah, you know, something about the beat was really cool, and Madonna, visually, was on TV all the time and I thought she was just so beautiful.
When I was15 years old, I couldn’t look at the NFL and look on TV and say, ‘Boy, there’s a head coach, African American. That’s something I’d like to do.’
I don’t want to be one of those rappers who had it, but right now they be on a TV show to keep them going. I would rather be out the scene, getting my money on Bitcoin.
I hate it when people talk about Buffy as being campy… I hate camp, I don’t enjoy dumb TV. I believe Aaron Spelling has single-handedly lowered SAT scores.
I didn’t watch much TV as a kid and I don’ t watch it now. I don’ t find anything beautiful or unique to the medium, and the only thing you can do on TV that you can’t do in film is make a continuing story – which is so cool!
The one thing the blues don’t get is the backing and pushing of TV and radio like a lot of this garbage you hears. They choke stuff down people’s throat so they got no choice but to listen to it.
My favorite TV couple is Edith and Archie Bunker. Because they were such individuals that I can’t imagine anyone else playing them. And I think that Archie was one of the greatest characters ever on television. Even with his flaws, you loved him.
TV writing – for me, at least – is half original voice and half an embodiment and a representation of the spirit of the actors you’re writing for.
How frustrating would it be if you’re the president of the United States, and every single time you turn on the TV on most of the channels, they’re misconstruing what you say?
I remember the first time I saw the ‘Sugarhill Gang’ on Soul Train. I was 11 or 12. I was like, ‘What’s going on? How did those guys get on national TV?’ And then, when I was a little older, a rapper from the neighborhood got a record deal. I was shocked.
You don’t have to turn on the TV set. You don’t have to work on the Internet. It’s up to you.
I always wanted to be a snake. Every time I saw a snake on TV. I’d always say ‘Why not me?’
I have a TV Soap Boomerang award, and I always start my year with the Australian Open tennis! Tennis, soccer, you name it.
On buses and trains, I always think about the inexhaustible variety of human genes. We see types, and occasionally twins, but never doubles. All faces are unique, and this is exhilarating, despite the increasingly plastic similarity of TV stars and actors.
If I don’t work, I’ll be sitting on the couch watching TV, eating popcorn and getting like a cow.
My thought process was: We had decided to become a B2C company and build the UTV brand and we couldn’t be that as a TV producer or ad film-maker or doing in-flight programmes.
It’s been very funny to try to act like an adult. Even getting dressed. Every day, I’m like, ‘Should I wear a blazer and walk around with an umbrella? Do I carry a briefcase?’ Because I’m trying to be some image of the adults I saw on TV growing up.
The life of King Jeongjo has previously inspired many films and TV dramas. ‘The King’s Wrath’ will show the tough and charismatic sides of the king that have been undermined in past works.
I had to think ahead. How much would I really enjoy committing five or seven years to working on this? When you’re an unemployed actor offered a TV pilot, no matter who you are you’re tempted by the good hunk of change to be made. It keeps you out of the unemployment line.
I think Ada in ‘The Piano’ is the most interior character I’ve ever had the chance to play, either on the stage or in anything I’ve done for film or TV.
I did my own music videos, my own TV commercials.
I wrote ‘She’s a Lady’ on the back of a TWA menu, flying back from London after doing Tom Jones’s TV show. Jones’s manager wanted me to write him a song. If I have an idea and I don’t have a pad of paper, I’ll write on whatever is available. What’s the difference? Paper is paper.
Sometimes they keep us in the dark, but it’s TV, so sometimes they keep us in the dark because even they don’t know yet. You know what I mean? So, it sort of develops as it goes along and according to various needs that arise.
I’m from Hollywood. That’s where we make movies and TV shows… I’m not from down here in men-fus ten-uh-see, okay?
I never had posters on my walls, and I didn’t have any icons, either. I come from a small village in Wirral, and my family didn’t watch TV. I wasn’t exposed to people with icon status. David Bowie popped up, but I had already shaved my eyebrows off by the time I saw his.
TV and film has defined my entire life.
Pick up any newspaper or magazine, open the TV, and you’ll be bombarded with suggestions of how to have a successful life. Some of these suggestions are deeply unhelpful to our own projects and priorities – and we should take care.
The people I want are very famous and very rich, and all I can offer them is a bit of exposure on TV and a bit of cash, so it’s a miracle we get any guests at all. But we have been very lucky.
I remember the first time seeing myself on TV, when my family was watching the documentary ‘Eyes on the Prize’ for the first time. There were pictures of people going up the school stairs, and Mom said, ‘Oh, that’s you!’ I said, ‘I can’t believe this. This is important.’
Real life is hard. I’m sorry, but shopping at Tesco is not as much fun as writing jokes for TV shows, and I struggle with it.
Nobody can understand the pressures of doing an hour-long TV show unless you’ve done one. Even when you’re not on call, you still are working, learning lines, doing appearances, just tense.
I hate programmes where some TV personality looks you in the eye and tells you what to think – the Andrew Marr version of history. I hate the authorial voice telling you what to think.
At the end of the day, TV is my first love. I started off my career from the small screen.
I made a record album in 1960 and it exploded, and I got all these offers for TV.
I studied Shakespeare at the American Musical and Dramatic Academy in New York City, and ‘Orange’ was my first audition ever for TV or film.
Every TV actor wants to do a film, but the thing is that if you sign up for a film then you have to be ready to dedicate time, which can run up to 2-3 years.
I first wanted to be a psychiatrist. I decided against that in medical school when I discovered that psychiatrists didn’t, in reality, do what they did on TV.
When you come to the end of a TV project, it’s good to be able – and I’m kind of lucky – that I can just go into a different medium, make another album, or do whatever.
We got lucky because we both happened to land TV shows. It was easy to ride that wave as long as possible because making music takes up so much time.
