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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.
Leslie Odom, Jr.
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We didn't go to Broadway musicals when I was growing up; it was too expensive.
Leslie Odom, Jr.
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There's this Frank Wildhorn tune 'Sarah' - it's not a widely known tune, but it's my favorite song to sing.
Leslie Odom, Jr.
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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.
Leslie Odom, Jr.
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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.
Leslie Odom, Jr.
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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.
Leslie Odom, Jr.
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You gotta prove yourself. I'm not above that. I will never be above that. Bring it!
Leslie Odom, Jr.
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'Hamilton' has restored my faith in theater.
Leslie Odom, Jr.
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I think art, at its best, happens on a conscious and a subconscious level.
Leslie Odom, Jr.
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I wanted to make an album that was hopeful and encouraging and inspiring. That was the goal.
Leslie Odom, Jr.
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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.'
Leslie Odom, Jr.
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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.
Leslie Odom, Jr.
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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.
Leslie Odom, Jr.
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I don't want to leave anything offstage.
Leslie Odom, Jr.
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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.'
Leslie Odom, Jr.
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We don't get to get swept up, because we have to start over every day at 8 o'clock.
Leslie Odom, Jr.
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Sometimes I think of creativity or art as this well that we all draw from.
Leslie Odom, Jr.
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Making $1,260 a week at 17 years old? That was a million dollars a week to me!
Leslie Odom, Jr.
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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.
Leslie Odom, Jr.
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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.
Leslie Odom, Jr.
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I grew up in the Canaan Baptist Church.
Leslie Odom, Jr.
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I remember when I was in 'Rent,' Daphne Rubin-Vega threw a party. At the time, she had a loft in TriBeCa, and the elevator opened right into her apartment. I was like, 'I've never seen anything like that.' I didn't know it was possible.
Leslie Odom, Jr.
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When I see the black experience - there's not one, but it is specific, and you can't ignore it.
Leslie Odom, Jr.
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You gotta love this thing. Whatever you choose to pursue - medicine, law, writing, you have to love it. You study it, you eat it, you drink it, you try it, you do it, you love it in every way.
Leslie Odom, Jr.
