Actors From New York City

"I almost think the chemistry, as opposed to the physical mechanics of the actual kissing or a sex scene is more palpable in the lack of contact."

"I am content being alive now, no matter how fucked up our political and societal present is. I think regardless of who you are, when you are tempted by the romanticism of the past, you forget how fucked up so much of it was. Take the worse state of health care as a banal example. Or, far more seriously, how the US was before the civil rights movement—and after it, for that matter, too."

"He’s kind of exorcist in front of the camera where you feel that there’s a force behind him that suddenly comes to the surface. I was dancing behind the camera. I think I had tears in my eyes."

"I admire people, and I've done it myself, who go on a talk show and say, 'Hey, we've got to keep movie theaters alive, we've gotta keep this genre alive,' and another part of me feels like if people want to see it, like Barbie, like Oppenheimer, they're going to go see it and go out of their way to be loud and proud about it. I don't want to be working in ballet, or opera, or things where it's like, 'Hey, keep this thing alive, even though like no one cares about this anymore.' All respect to all the ballet and opera people out there. I just lost 14 cents in viewership. I just took shots for no reason."

"I think the world would be a better place if we took a page out of how people treat each other at anime cons."

"Me, Dr. Harmon, and the rest of the NOCO Center for Arts Entrepreneurship are so excited to have Mr. Hardy be a part of our team, serving as the Senior Director of Operations and Artist-Entrepreneur in Residence for the center!"

""A master in his craft, he possesses a natural skill in every aspect of his career, bringing musical compositions to life with his own signature flair. However, Hardy is also constantly pushing himself to evolve and challenge himself in new areas of his career, whether it’s taking on new genres of music or new projects, he does so with determination and an extremely charming and amenable attitude that has made him a natural star in whatever role he’s in.”"

"Ultimately I think about who I want to inspire, and I think it’s important to have people who look like me to inspire other people from my community to join orchestras."

"I composed original music to reflect the period in history and to pay homage to L. Frank Baum's touching story. The exploration of different genres of music (i.e. romantic, classical, modern, and folk) was used to express a purer sense of the emotions and the intentions of Baum's characters. There is a freedom in composing original music in a period piece. This story takes place in the mid-1800's, it is a fantasy that parallels the realities of that time in history. Oz is a dark and mysterious place, where evils abound, and there is an unknown about the future. Oddly, there are many similarities in the world today."

"Edward W. Hardy is a DA student at the University of Northern Colorado. Even before attending UNC, Eddie had built up an impressive resume of recordings, compositions, publications, and even produced an off-Broadway show in New York City!"

"People who are more privileged might have a history of violinists in their heritage. I’m the only musician in my family, which makes it a little difficult with questions like: “What College should I go to?” or “Where should I be playing?” It is difficult, and there are a lot people telling you not to [pursue it] because it’s so hard. Sometimes it can feel discouraging, but I’m someone who’s very driven all the time, especially in the face of negativity. It’s rare, in theatre, to see someone who looks like me and writes music, so that also drives me."

"Another highlight was performing for Nas at his Watches of Switzerland and Haute Living event last year. Although I felt prepared as I arranged the backing tracks for my performance, I was extremely nervous. I honestly couldn’t figure out why because I have over 21 years of experience performing around the country, but this performance felt different. Maybe it was the legend himself or maybe it was extremely important to me, but I haven’t experienced a performance like that in a while. It’s funny that friends and family members of mine were telling me about how much they love Nas, the impact he had on their lives and how cool it was that I’d be performing for him. An old teacher of mine used to tell me, “if you’re nervous, then that means the performance is very important to you.” It’s quite possible that’s what it was, or it’s that I was star-struck, or I kept thinking about my family. I ended up having a great time performing and felt silly I was nervous to begin with."

"Mama, now I can breathe,...“This is a classical piece that reflects our current time, and as an artist, that is my job–to bring light into the darkness, to convey the pain of what I witness and experience, to inspire change…and, if I’m lucky, to escape the reality of America. Music is, and will always be, my therapy."

"The purest way to communicate the human condition is through the beauty of music."

"There is going to be an inescapable tension between – and I’m going to call them the oligarchy; the establishment, the monied classes, the one percent – and the rest of us and the rest of humanity. And without some strong institution like the medieval church, to intervene, people are just going to go out for themselves. And there were some economic theorists who believe that’s the best thing for society, and they cling to that."

"The Internet is a physicalization of our actual pure psychic connection to ourself and the universe, and it's becoming real ... so as we set up all these things that kind of fake our psychic connection, in terms of our wires and all [garbled] connect to computers ... now it's like it's kind of up to us to either join with it psychically and spiritually, because if not it's gonna [ __ ] eat us. (41:51)"

"I was reading a really interesting breakdown of Dune, talking about the fractal nature of the series, and about how ideas spin off ideas, and spin off ideas, and spin off ideas ... and that the second trilogy, the only way to describe it, is Muppet Babies Dune, because everybody comes back as babies."

"The Internet is a mirror of our subconscious thoughts. (63:51)"

"I don’t have a job - I have a career. This may sound like semantics, (maybe it is) but to me a job is something you depend on from an employer. It’s theirs to give and theirs to take away... A career is something i have to be responsible for based on my reputation, my ability, and my preferences."

"What we called method filmmaking, was really about the filmmaking and the acting, two worlds colliding, and that trust was built because of the dynamic, and the backdrop that the filmmakers created for us."

"There’s a tax that you incur when you use the “N” word or the “F” word, and there are groups, whether it’s the NAACP or gay groups, who will make you pay it. But if you use the “R” word, you’ve picked the most vulnerable target, because people within the intellectual disabilities population are not going to return serve. They aren’t genetically designed to confront you the way other groups do."

"Whenever you think you’re better than the words, you’re dead meat. I know actors all the time want to rewrite this, or rewrite that. I guess maybe if you’re some really skilled writer, actor, maybe like Ed Burns or somebody, but most of us you got to hew to the words. You got to hew to what’s on the page. And if you sprinkle in some of your sensibilities, that’s great and all that, but I love being a soldier of the words. That’s my thing. It always has been."

"Every morning I pick up my newspaper, get the obituary section, see if I'm listed, and if not, I have my breakfast."

"Those people with a sense of humor get by more comfortably than those who don’t."

"The fact that people come to a place, where everyone makes that commitment, and they are in the country just changes the atmosphere of work so there is a kind of relaxation and comaradery that is very special. It is a special place."

"Stanislavsky is the person who really originated the movement that later inspirated the American Theatre and it was the institutionalization of the Actors studio which made it permanent."

"If Lee Strasberg took a mainly Freudian approach to the business of acting training, then John Strasberg is Jungian. He works a lot with dreams."

"The thing that I think he thought me he said: "Whatever works for you. You make up your own method"."

"Life is armonic at its best."

"The creative process, like anything in life has poetry to it ."

"Chaos, doubts, and confusion is normal and signifies the beginning of the creative process"

"To intentionally dream about the world in which the character lives is work which the actor must always do alone; it is then that he establishes the link between himself and the play. This is what I now recognize takes place in the actor’s personal dream space."

"I was instructed to do everything I could to help her. My soul was now indentured to serve their relationship with Marilyn. At twenty-one, I felt that my career had already been erased."

"All art is transformational."

"Basic technique is knowing yourself and knowing how to use yourself."

"There are three great teachers of acting - Life, Shakespeare, and Yourself."

"I hear a chavalo named Lin-Manuel in New York is pretty good."

"(Which writers — novelists, playwrights, critics, journalists, poets — working today do you admire most?) …Also Lin-Manuel Miranda; “Hamilton” blew me away, and I can’t wait to see what he does next."

"I think that if we’ve done our job well and we articulate this individual’s life well, the themes inherent in that translate…It’s about legacy, about how much do we do with the time we’re given? And then there are themes that wrestle with the American character, but only in that Hamilton’s life is a rough-draft version of the arguments we still have as a country."

"There are a few people who only like hip-hop music, and a few who only like theatre music, and the rest of us just like good shit. It doesn’t matter what form it comes in. I think we’re all a lot more eclectic than we give ourselves credit for…"

"The honest answer is there are things inside me I want to make – Hamilton is one of those things, Heights was another. And since the success of Hamilton, my life has been about finding the balance between the things I always wanted to make and the opportunities that are so incredible I’d be angry if they opened and I wasn’t in them. So Mary Poppins and Little Mermaid definitely fall into that category. I think there is always a part of me that is checking in with childhood Lin and asking: ‘Would little Lin be freaking out about this?’ If the answer is yes, then I say yes."

"…I think if you want to make a recipe for making a writer, have them feel a little out of place everywhere, have them be an observer kind of all the time, and that's a great way to make a writer…"

"I remember a young playwright of Puerto Rican descent named Lin-Manuel Miranda, who told us in the photo line before an evening of poetry, music, and the spoken word that he planned to debut the first song of what he hoped would be a hip-hop musical on the life of America's first Treasury secretary, Alexander Hamilton. We were politely encouraging but secretly skeptical, until he got up onstage and started dropping beats and the audience went absolutely nuts."

"Each song is like a short movie...And each character is different."

"I'm told L.A. Law's success — the fact that his ethnicity was very much part of his identity and he was a great lawyer — caused an increase in applicants to law schools. I got requests to be a keynote speaker at the New Mexico Hispanic Bar Association, the Illinois Bar Association. I always felt that was a little bit above my pay grade, but that's a nice icing on the cake, when your character resonates with the audience."

"Brooklyn born, Bronx bred… I felt like the dreamer/day tripper of the neighborhood with a vivid imagination and a longing to transcend the mundane through my love of the arts. My mother inspired me a lot. I can remember growing up hearing her voice in the background on the phone urging others to stop putting up with abuse and to stand up for themselves in order to better their lot in life. She was always helping people – mostly other women – liberate themselves from oppressive relationships whether it was at home or work."

"As an artist I want to try to be as versatile as possible. I’ve had the good fortune to play characters that have a role-model thing to them. But I would think now, after 25 years, 30, that the body of work does say something about where I’m coming from. So now it’s not so much about role models. Although this character does have a nihilistic approach to life and he’s very complicated and flawed, that’s a meal for an actor."

"As an immigrant first-generation family here in this country, it wasn't about safe choices, it was about realistic choices. There was a lot of weight put into the fact that I was one of the first in my extended family to attend college [a bachelor's from Brooklyn College, a master's in fine arts from Cornell) and what that meant — what this country has to offer."

"...I was born and raised in Spanish Harlem and lived in New York most of my adult life. My life, my music and career started here. The fact that I no longer live in New York doesn’t mean I don’t consider this amazing city my home. I walked and lived in these streets for most of my life..."

"Latinos are still considered a bit of 'other', Arabs are still 'others,' Africans as American as they can be are still visually 'other' so I would like to say, 'hey we are part of the same family.' We all contribute to this nation. We overindex in the consumption of entertainment but we underindex in the representation and the quality of representation."