When I attack a role, be it TV, film or stage, the first thing I say is, I don't want to know anything. If it's good I don't want to hear it; if it's bad I don't want to hear it. The only thing either thing can do is distract me. I like to stay focused
Interpretation
Focus on the role without external opinions to maintain artistic integrity.
Cicely Tyson emphasizes the importance of maintaining focus on her work without being influenced by external opinions, whether positive or negative. By choosing to remain uninformed about the reception of her performances, she seeks to immerse herself fully in her craft, free from distractions that could hinder her artistic expression.
In practice
In a speech about artistic dedication at a theater festival.
How do you project a character if you don't have a sense of where she is from? I've always just gotten on a plane to go to the area to get a sense of what it is like, to smell it, feel the earth, hear people talk, go to the marketplaces.
I saw that I could not afford the luxury of just being an actress. So I made a choice to use my career as a platform to address the issues of the race I was born into.
I don't think you can measure wealth in dollars and cents. I really don't believe that at all because there are some things that money cannot buy. One of them is health. And the other is security in your relationships and friends.
One of the things I have always said about the man-woman relationship is that I don't want anybody to walk ahead of me, and I don't want anybody to walk behind me. I want a man who will walk along beside me. And that's how I feel about equal rights.
Unless a piece really said something, I had no interest in it. I have got to know that I have served some purpose here.
We have to support our own films. If we don't, how can we expect others to support them?
The realists do not take the photograph for a 'copy' of reality, but for an emanation of past reality, a magic, not an art.
Poetry consists in a rhyming dictionary and things seen.
My greatest achievement is being able to write records that are real snapshots of what's going on in my life. I won't repeat myself for the sake of commerce, or to please other people.
She danced the dance of flames and fire, _x000D_ _x000D_ and the dance of swords and spears; _x000D_ _x000D_ she danced the dance of stars and the dance of space, _x000D_ _x000D_ and then she danced the dance of flowers in the wind.
Self-censorship is a lie to yourself; if you are going to be trying to seriously create art, to create literary art, and you decide to hold back, to censor yourself, then you are a fool to yourself and it would be better that you kept your mouth shut and did not speak.
It wasn't about mechanics; it was about a feeling, wanting to give someone something, which in turn was really gratifying. That really resonated for me.
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