I can get onstage and cut that off and be superinstinctive. To be a good live performer, you have to be instinctive. It's like, to walk in the jungle, or to do anything where there's a certain tightrope wire aspect you need to be instinctive. And you have to be comfortable at it also.
I think Madonna is a wonderful performer.
It's always been impressive to me when someone can really do what they want onstage. The audience has confidence in the performer and the performer has confidence in the crowd.
I think the most important thing is to establish myself as an actor. As much as it's a performing art, I'm not really a performer.
My mother wasn't rich, and I never seen my father. I was a street performer. I've been shot. And now I'm known around the world, and I've touched a lot of people with my music. That's one of the great testimonies that's gonna go down in history.
Because of my Asian-ness, I couldn't be anonymous - what I said, what I ate, what I did at the weekend were startlingly different to what everyone else did. I was also a performer, quick and chameleon-like, good at accents, so that made me stand out.
I never planned on being a live performer. My whole forte was about being in the studio, producing, playing the piano on recording sessions. I was all about the studio.
I was never a child actor. I was a child performer.
What I love most about playing in front of people has something to do with a certain kind of energy exchange. The attention and appreciation of my audience feeds back into my playing. It really seems as if there is a true and equal give and take between performer and listener, making me aware of how much I depend on my audience. And since the audience is different every night, the music being played will differ too. Every space I performed in has its own magic and spirit.
At the age of 15 I began my singing lessons, and once I became a professional performer, I dove into acting.
I always wanted to be a performer, I didn't know exactly what kind of performer, all I knew was there were certain things that I liked. I liked movies a whole lot, and I loved music.
As a member of the audience I don't like it that I can't see what's going on in the eyes and in the face and in the most subtle responses of a performer when I'm more than a few rows back. I find it very frustrating.
I am inspired by show girls and Vegas. I was a cabaret performer, so that's where all that influence comes from.
Performers and their public should never meet. Once the curtain comes down, the performer should fly away like a magician's dove.
When I'm on stage, I feel like a performer, for sure. I know people are looking at me and taking pictures and singing along, and that part's wonderful.
I had progressed as a performer, but I hadn't progressed as a human being.
I know I'm a strong performer. I'm not an evolved musician.
You have to be willing to be a live performer, if you want to make money as an independent.
I love festivals because they seem like more of an artsy, supportive attitude - which benefits a more theatrical performer sometimes with having theater and other non-club venues, as well as the audience being filled with other artists. It's nice to be with other comics, as usually at other road gigs, I'm solo for the most part.
I'm the audience first, and if you're gonna be a great performer, you need to be a great audience. So, I do music for me first, and whoever likes it likes it, and whoever doesn't -- well, it's just not for them.