Sometimes, when the material is really good, you put expectations on yourself to make it the best possible show. You're not just serving up the regular hash and doing your job and going home.
Interpretation
This quote emphasizes the importance of high standards in artistic expression and the pressure that comes with it.
Peter Dinklage discusses the burden of expectations that artists face when they encounter exceptional material. Rather than treating their work as just a routine job, they feel compelled to elevate their performance, striving to deliver something extraordinary.
In practice
In a speech at an art gala, one could quote this to inspire artists to pursue excellence.
It's a shame how a lot of actors use theater as a stepping stone to film and television work; I think it shouldn't be treated that way. Maybe it's narcissism or something. I think we should always go back to it. I try and do a play a year, and I think that's really helped me.
Any swagger is just defense. When you're reminded so much of who you are by people - not a fame thing, but with my size, constantly, growing up - you just either curl up in a corner in the dark or you wear it proudly, like armor or something. You can turn it on its head and use it yourself before anybody else gets a chance.
Every person my size has a different life, a different history. Different ways of dealing with it. Just because I'm seemingly O.K. with it, I can't preach how to be O.K. with it. I don't think I still am O.K. with it. There's days when I'm not.
I think actors get too comfortable. I like being uncomfortable as an actor because it keeps you alive. I don't know, I think it's important.
Dwarves are still the butt of jokes. It's one of the last bastions of acceptable prejudice.
Call me a midget, but just be real. I am all for correct terms, but please don't tiptoe around feelings. Don't be too careful, because that shuts you off from people.
The story of Alexander Hamilton lends itself to hip-hop treatment. Hamilton's personality is driven and unrelenting, and the music has that same quality. The music and the man mirror each other.
The system is the work of art; the visual work of art is the proof of the System. The visual aspect can't be understood without understanding the system. It isn't what it looks like but what it is that is of basic importance.
Emerald as heavy as a golf course, ruby as dark as an afterbirth, diamond as white as sun on the sea.
Music will never go away, and I will never stop making music; it's just what capacity or what arena you decide to do it.
While the documentary community is way ahead of Hollywood, it is still nowhere near where it needs to be. Filmmakers of color rarely get hired by the powerful production companies, and they are not getting supported enough by broadcasters and funders to tell their own stories.
It's no use to go and take courses in playwriting any more than it's much use taking courses in acting. Better play to a bad matinée in Hull, it will teach you much more than a year of careful instruction.
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