Kenny Leon Quotes
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I'm not one to spend my life asking the question, 'Is there racism in America?' Certainly there is. But I want to do something about it.
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I like working with actors who make choices. Whether they get their ideas from me or from themselves, I want them to own all the choices so I can take my hand out of it.
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I think 'Holler If Ya Hear Me' is almost 'A Raisin in the Sun' 50 years later, with just a different 20-year-old voice speaking the words. But it's about access to the American dream and equal lives having equal value in America. It's still holding a mirror up to us so we can see ourselves.
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I've always had an affinity for writers who have a poetry background, so I always liked Tennessee Williams.
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I always approach every play based on the cast. When Denzel and I did 'Fences,' I didn't go to rehearsals and say, 'OK, James Earl Jones did a wonderful job in '87. Let me see if you can come close to James Earl Jones.'
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When I'm working in television, I've learned you've got to work fast. You don't have time to rehearse; you don't have time to just mess around. You've got to move quickly. So I pick that up from that world, and I also pick up the idea of development of character and development of situations.
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I came from the South with a mother who was hard working, so I love going to work every day.
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I love the idea of live theater the best because you are sitting there with the community in the dark, looking at the light, and that's really - you can't get any higher than that.
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Broadway, in my opinion, is a microcosm of America. Those challenges that we have in our country, I think we still have those challenges on the Broadway stage. I think there are far too few African-American directors working on Broadway.
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As I tell young people in workshops, 'It's your country. If you came here on the bottom of a slave ship, if your people came here seeking political freedom – however your folks got here – it belongs to you just as much as it belongs to anyone, so claim it. It's your birthright. America belongs to every person who is here.'
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In the early '90s, there was an attention to diversity. In this country, diversity was a good thing. People would use words like 'multicultural' and like it. Now, politically, those words are out. But I still feel theaters have to be diverse in order to survive.
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I've directed 'Raisin in the Sun' five times. You keep discovering things. You keep on seeing things in the script that you never saw before. That's what great pieces of art do.
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I grew up a poor kid in Florida, and I was always in Florida living with my stepfather and my mother, and we used to, every year, sit down and watch 'The Wizard of Oz.' And I think to this day that's probably the foundation for everything I've done since.
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When I'm acting, I'm just worried about that piece of the pie, contributing to the whole. But when you're directing, you... get the vision out of your head and on the stage.
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I love film because you have the last word. I never get that on stage because you've got to really believe; you've got to get the actors to trust you, and they have to believe in you, and then hopefully they will when you open the show.
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The first 45 or 50 years of the regional theater movement, all these folks, they built these theaters. The job of the next generation is to maintain them.
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I've always liked that idea of a diverse group of audience members sitting together, rubbing up against each other and taking on the life of a culture that doesn't belong to either one of them.
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As an artist, you're thankful to get a shot at a story more than once, because it doesn't happen all the time. Whether you talk about 'Hamlet' or 'Death of a Salesman,' you always want to see what the next group of actors will do.
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As an older generation, we need to give all our young people love and the possibility of realizing their dreams. For instance, if I get really political, the fact that some people can't go to college, can't even think about college, that's not American; that's not right.
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I tried to stay off the stage, but you know, I'm an actor; I'm an artist.
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Broadway is the same as Hollywood. Every few years we say we reached the mountaintop, then we take two steps back.
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There's room for Spike Lee's movies; there's room for Tyler Perry's movies. There's room for classics with an all black cast. There's room for all of it as long as we don't try to make any one piece define us as a race.
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A lot of times, we are trapped by our own false sense of security. You can do whatever it is you put your mind to. Your goal is to find your purpose.
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To me, I'm sort of like Dorothy in 'The Wiz.' It kind of parallels my life. It's a story that reminds me... that home is where the love is. So if I go to Tampa or St. Pete, and I feel the love there, that's my home. That's where the love is.