Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
Ellie Kemper I just adore. She is such a warm, generous actor, and we have this wonderful rapport off camera, and that's very important.
Life moves so fast, my friend. I am just lucky and happy to have the people I care about there along with me, watching all of this occur.
The first role that I got on Broadway was supposedly for a white man. But I had some producers who fought for me and allowed me to come in.
I feel like communication is the same whether you're cooking for someone or singing or writing a song or writing a play or ordering from McDonald's.
The critics are not writers - they're not a part of the creative process; therefore, they should not influence how I go about doing my next bit of work.
To somehow shrink so that you might be more comfortable is a foreign language to me. It's a trait that I've never had. And that I hope I never, ever have.
I fell asleep during 'The Dark Knight Rises.' I fell asleep during 'The Hunger Games,' all of them. I cannot stay awake. As soon as a movie starts, I'm asleep!
I get to do some unbelievably layered things. The material that I'm given is so complex, and I'm so grateful for it, so I welcome any opportunities to push boundaries.
My mom is quite religious, and she got the name Tituss from the Bible. It's one of the smallest books in the Bible. I don't know why she added an 's,' but she just did.
I think Donald Trump has put America in great danger, and I think he's done a disservice to us even if he doesn't win. I think his effect is going to be kind of lasting.
I'm writing a musical. I am. I was able to buy the rights to 'The Preacher's Wife,' which starred Whitney Houston... I'm writing a whole new score and all the lyrics for it.
'Penny Dreadful' is so realistic. The tonality is so earthy and so real that I actually believe it is in the realm of possibility for all these extra species to exist among us.
I'm black. I'm gay. I'm culturally Christian. I am a walking target on so many levels, and it is horrifying and a cross that very, very many of us who look like me have to bear.
I can call up a friend and have them meet me for a drink in 20 minutes, and suddenly, the night unfolds into this glorious, uniquely New York situation. I wouldn't give it up for the world.
I wish Howard Ashman was still alive so I could just meet him and tell him his words are magic. It's so fun to say. He has such great alliteration and paints the most vivid images with his lyrics
I've been in New York for going on five years now, and I always thought I would make a mark and do something but I never thought it would be this big of a deal. I'm so blessed and I'm truly honored.
I never had trouble within the audition room. That is a room that I control. So while I certainly experienced versions of what Titus Andromedon was going through, I never experienced the self-doubt.
For me, having walked through Times Square so many times as a broke and starving artist, as a TV star, and now having other hopes and dreams, it just represents possibility and the moment of full circle.
I don't want to sound pretentious or meta or anything, but I don't write until it comes to me... People know when something is inspired and when something is not, and I don't want to waste anyone's time.
Outside of the oppressive nature that the South offered to the black people, black gay people, black gay people who happened to be Christian, who wouldn't want to leave? I couldn't wait to get out of there.
One thing I refuse to do is force it. So I've canceled many auditions because nothing has come up, and I don't want to waste anybody's time. God forbid they outright give it to me and I don't connect with it.
If anyone has the opportunity to work with that woman, jump at it. She is the most generous, most giving director I have ever worked with in my entire life. She is classy. She speaks a dozen difference languages.
I am well aware of my good fortune, and I only hope to diversify so I can do what I'm already doing for more people as opposed to being so large and so great that I no longer want to do the thing that got me here.
There is still a great deal of self-hatred that we refuse to deal with because we are still measuring ourselves against the norms of a masculine, heterosexual world. That is the backdrop with which we measure the man.
I pinch myself every night when I hear the overture starting. I'm so overwhelmed by the whole process, and humbled and giddy all at the same time because I can't believe it's me that gets to sing these songs every night.
One thing about my dinner parties - they're never planned. I go to the grocery store, and I buy whatever is on sale. I get a lot of it, and I just send out a mass text: 'I just bought food. Dinner's at 8. Text me if you're coming.'
Black people, if I may, we don't get a lot of opportunities to do a lot of different things outside the norm, outside of what is expected of us. Black women on Broadway are expected to put themselves downstage center and tear the roof off.
On stage, everyone stays put; the vantage point is always the vantage point, and you have to play to the size of the house. And of course, on film, there's different angles, different shots, so that determines how animated or how still you must be.
People have to work to maintain happiness. It's easy to be miserable. It's easy to stay miserable. It's easy to live in a place where nothing's working and not being able to work your way out of it. It's much harder to choose happiness, to choose laughter, to choose a positive.
We were always in church, and always singing, so once I realized that music was something that I had a knack for, I sort of latched onto it, and it helped give me an identity and figure out who I was as a person. It informed my way into theater, which informed my way into television.
I had this one audition - I won't say the casting director's name, but she was on the phone the whole time I sang. I was literally doing my audition, and she was on the phone. So I guess whatever it is she was ordering for lunch was more important than the high C's I was belting out.
Here's what I'm going to say about that: my personal thought about the brilliance of 'Peeno Noir' as proven by the fans' appreciation is that, when watched back, what makes it so exciting is the random locations and the random costume changes and the multiple shots that we've done all over the city.
I worked at Ruby Foos early on as a host. I was only there for a little bit, but I had several odd jobs to pay the bills before that. And being in New York for the first year, I got here in 2003, and it was a very exciting but very scary time not knowing how you would make ends meet and me trying to meet people.
When I cook at home, most of the people I cook for want to be in the kitchen while I'm cooking. I love nothing more than someone monitoring how much salt I put into something, how much pepper I add - but nothing that you can offer is going to sway how I decide to deliver information to you; you'll either receive it or you won't.
Titus belongs to 'Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt,' Titus Andromedon. Tituss Burgess couldn't be more different. I get how people think I'm one and the same, but I just don't live there. I'm nothing like that man, and whatever I would do wouldn't be in stark contrast just because, but because I'm in stark contrast, it would be different.
My microphone went out in the 2009 Tony Awards. It was my big moment, and I was so excited to perform and lead the cast; I sang 'Sit Down, You're Rockin' the Boat.' Every actor dreams of standing front and center on the Tony Awards, and I start to sing, and you hear this crackling. I had no idea what to do - were they going to stop a live telecast?
There's a bit of a difference in the way he sounds. Samuel E. Wright lent his voice and personality to the animated film with his booming voice. I have a high-tenor voice. Instead, I have to figure out a way to convince the audience to come along with me and accept this new texture and tambour to the way Sebastian sounds. I have a great dialect coach.
As soon as that little "ba-da-da-dink-dink" at the beginning of "Under the Sea" starts I think to myself: "Here we go! Let's do it!" When I first got the role, I was very intimidated because people have high expectations. But I have nothing to prove only to share. I'll do my best interpretation of what these songs should sound like in their current incarnations and it's quite an honor.
Meanwhile someone is shining my head to get it dry to attach my top-hat to my head with toupee tape. I get into microphone and get back up into my dressing room for the rest of my costume. I get snapped into all these things and layers and bundled up. I walk downstairs to the pit. Someone hands me my baton (which lights up like a wand) and I watch the first three minutes of the show. Then I come up out of the pit and there I am.
I've grown up watching and admiring Norm. Sherie actually starred in the first off-Broadway show I ever saw in New York, which was The Last Five Years. It's amazing how things come full-circle and how the community (once you hang around it long enough) grows smaller and smaller as it grows. Sharing the stage with these people is more than a dream come true it's so special. They're so warm and giving and offer the best advice. Sherie is very nice and maternal and nurturing.