In a way artists are shamans facilitators who take what's there channel it through themselves then put it out there for people to appreciate.
I want to experience a performance on all levels - I want goose bumps and I want to leave the movie or play arguing about something that's unresolved.
When I was thinking about The Lion King I said we have to do what theater does best. What theater does best is to be abstract and not to do literal reality.
Theater is far superior to film in poetry in abstract poetry.
There is incredible power in the arts to inspire and influence.
In America the word art has become like the word adultery. It's this big scarlet letter. When you say you're an artist people are like "Ugh.
Children have an easier ability to tap into the surreal than adults do in a funny kind of way.
What I adore is the juxtaposition of high tech and low tech. It's sort of like I love the sacred and the profane. I love to put these extremes in the same hopper.
I have never had a problem with people not being able to understand the words and the meanings in Titus.
I love directing Shakespeare on film. It's fantastic that the actors would do exactly the same thing and be true to their part.
You have to stop yourself from even thinking about failing.
The idea that all violence in movies is okay simply because it happens is bull. Directors and writers have a responsibility.
I am to be quite honest sick of hero stories.
I think we all see the world from our own little unique bubble.
People have become so literal because they're used to reality-based television.
One of the reasons I love to jump back and forth between mediums is that film does allow me to be more literal. I can go to the real place. I can go to the Coliseum and I don't have to fake it.
I am creative in my living space - the designer in me helps that out.
Some of my ideas for film or theater come to me in dreams. I'm also very creative when I'm talking to others. I believe in collaboration.
I'm a firm believer in the idea that theater excels over film and TV in its ability to let people play with poetry.
I believe that if you really have a strong idea you can say "What do you think? Let's see how my idea plays off yours.
I really do believe that if you don't challenge yourself and risk failing that it's not interesting.
People will justify whatever for a good cause.
My God it transformed me. My life changed.
I use cinematic things in a theatrical way on stage and in film I use theatrical techniques in a cinematic way.
You don't have to patronize your audience and you can mix art and commerce in a profound way. You can simultaneously play to the sophisticated 60-year-old theatergoers and to 4-year-olds.
I think that both musicals and opera have a capacity to get to an inner emotional landscape.
Some people become dullards but as children we are all creative. It's in the programming the socialization that we lose our sense of play.
I call myself a playmaker sometimes - but that's just a word. I don't feel like I have to have a title or a job description.
It's people who are repressed and cannot express their fears that are dangerous.
When you break into song it's not about dialogue it's not about how you would speak in a naturalistic sense-it's about expressing your inner torment or your inner joy.
I've had male executives say that my lead character was unlikable because she slept with a lot of guys.
What I don't know for sure is what's next for me - and I don't mind that. I know for sure that whatever happens will be interesting and will challenge and excite me.
What I don't have in theater is editing.
A performance can have amazing visuals and special effects but it has to tell a good story even if that story isn't original.
An artist is an entertainer number one - a storyteller who takes people someplace who gives them what they didn't know they wanted.
We're really having a problem right now in our culture. I haven't seen one movie lately in which the story and visuals have been equally good.
You just have to throw fear out the window. If there's anything that's going to hold you back it's fear.
That's my policy - to be positive to just hope that something will happen. If you start with all your fears your receptivity is for the negative.
And I just think that to introduce an unknown Shakespeare is thrilling too - not to do Hamlet or Romeo and Juliet to do the richer Shakespeare. People will come to this and not know the story.
I lived in Indonesia for four years and I understand trance and magic and where it comes from.
You program music with an image and then people are desensitized.
Everything amounts to nothing if you don't love someone or something.
Limitations force you to find the essence of what you want to say which is one of the most important things to know for an artist.
When I was growing up there were a lot more arts in the public schools. Politically America has screwed up on that.