Leslie Odom, Jr. Quotes
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We didn't go to Broadway musicals when I was growing up; it was too expensive.
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I've realized along the way that a lot of things that I do as a performer are about waiting for somebody to write something for me or develop something for me, but music, music was the thing that I don't have to wait for anybody's permission to do.
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You gotta prove yourself. I'm not above that. I will never be above that. Bring it!
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I wanted to make an album that was hopeful and encouraging and inspiring. That was the goal.
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The record company felt wisely that we should get something out before I left 'Hamilton' or around awards time, and that deadline was not easy.
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I know what it's like to be ignored; when I got to L.A., I longed for somebody who looked like me to show me the ropes.
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I have a great foundation, a great training foundation. But it took me a long time to let the training go.
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People are coming to you at their most vulnerable; they're showing you the parts of themselves that they're afraid to show: the parts that they're not so sure about, not so secure in. And so it's a really holy profession I think, teaching. If you do it right, it can change somebody's life.
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Until you make a name for yourself, they're like, 'Be a little more Denzel,' 'Be a little more Wesley Snipes.'
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I think for a lot of us, you know, what 'Hamilton' gave us the opportunity to, what it gave me the opportunity to do, was to go, 'Here's what I've learned in 35 years.'
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I haven't had a chance to decorate my dressing room yet, but I have these pictures of myself as a kid that I want to put up because I said, 'I really want to make sure that I take that kid with me on this journey.' I want him to experience this.
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We want to pull out songs from the American song book, and we want to make them palatable for a modern audience.
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I don't want to leave anything offstage.
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I remember Ella Fitzgerald sort of coming into my life like a bolt of lightning - like, what is that? It was one of the purest examples of God in art that I'd ever seen.
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'Hamilton' has restored my faith in theater.
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Sometimes I think of creativity or art as this well that we all draw from.
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I was a good student; I was a good boy. I got A's, and I did all the papers right.
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I've been involved with 'Hamilton' for about two and a half years. I've learned so much. I came into it a young man. Now I've dropped the 'young.'
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We don't get to get swept up, because we have to start over every day at 8 o'clock.
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None of us get to divorce ourselves from the world. We walk into the theater and bring all of our grief and our pain and our joy with us.
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When I see the black experience - there's not one, but it is specific, and you can't ignore it.
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Making $1,260 a week at 17 years old? That was a million dollars a week to me!
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I grew up in the Canaan Baptist Church.
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What's a better foundation for drama? You have power, you have ambition, you have sex... that's the stuff of drama.