I always wanted to work with a TV. So I'm open.
I realized that I was a really, really terrible actor. I was like, "I'd better be myself. "
There's a tendency to treat anyone with a physical disability as inspiring. I call it a pedestal of prejudice, in that you're lifting people up to dismiss them. My whole thing is bringing us down to everyone else's level and saying we're all the same. The struggle is the same.
You want the world to be set up for you, but sometimes it just isn't.
I think that's where it comes into play, when you are just looking at a document or whatever and you see the word "disability. " Does that automatically trigger something in you that denies someone their personhood?
When I read the script [of Glee], the whole premise was that all the high school kids were being cruel to this kid in the wheelchair, and then the quarterback comes along and has a heart of gold and takes him out of a Porta Potty. That's too often what I see in media, that the characters with disabilities are there to make other people seem like heroes for treating the character with a disability with respect. Those are the kinds of roles that are out there.
If everything was perfect, it would always be a person-first conversation, but whenever I have the opportunity, I lead with my personality. If they're looking and seeing the disability first or the chair first, I know that I have the ability to change that.
According to Krishnamacharya , practice and knowledge must always go together. He used to say, practice without right knowledge of theory is blind. This is also because without right knowledge, one can mindfully do a wrong practice.
Affection would not be affection if it was loudly and frequently expressed; to produce it in public is like getting your household furniture out for a move. It did very well in its place, but it looks shabby or tawdry or grotesque in the sunshine.
I realized that performing was what I wanted to do when I did my first professional gig as a dancer with my company Synergy in Canada. I was overwhelmed with how it felt to perform in front of an audience.
There is a temptation in politics to look for simplistic slogans and to play the game in a way that looks like you're a savvy politician.