Top 36 Billy Porter Quotes
#1. I'm trying to embrace social media because it gives artists a little more power than we've had in the past.
Billy Porter
#2. I'm not a person who believes that Broadway is the only place. I think there's lots of work that goes on outside of Broadway and outside of New York that's better than anything Broadway has ever seen. But, it's historically the place. It's one of the centers of the universe, in many ways.
Billy Porter
#4. There's this misconception that I've been turning down roles. It's just not true. The reality is, there was nothing for me to do, nobody was calling, the phone wasn't ringing.
Billy Porter
#5. When you're at the beginning of your career, there are a lot of, "I don't care about this," jobs that you take because it's about building your resume and building connections. There are so many factors that don't have anything to do with choosing for the material.
Billy Porter
#6. When you grow up in the church, the only translation in that insular world that people understand is preaching. You're supposed to be a minister. So I was going down that path, and then I saw the Tonys.
Billy Porter
#7. Just by the nature of making the choice to be true to who I am, I'm political. Sometimes that's all you need to do: Show up and be black, gay and Christian in America and actually say it out loud. And refuse to let anything or anybody take that away from you.
Billy Porter
#8. When I was younger, I did what I now call 'extreme singing.' I could do this thing where I would sing really high. I can't really do that anymore, at my age. My voice has shifted. It's changed.
Billy Porter
#9. We need to understand that whatever we do, we're all human beings first.
Billy Porter
#10. For years I tried to put myself in a box, and it frustrated me, so I had to let go and let the universe take its course.
Billy Porter
#11. I had something nobody else could do - I sang in a way that separated me - and, when you're trying to get noticed, you play your trump card.
Billy Porter
#12. I was fine being in the closet at the beginning of my career because that's what you were supposed to be - until I realized that it didn't serve anybody, and I was left feeling utterly empty. This is who I am, so I've gotta be me.
Billy Porter
#13. I do 'sissy with a heart of gold' really well.
Billy Porter
#14. I don't in any way disparage any time I've had in the trenches because it really has made me the artist I am today.
Billy Porter
#15. For me, life is about being positive and hopeful, choosing to be joyful, choosing to be encouraging, choosing to be empowering.
Billy Porter
#16. I took 'Grease' to play my trump card, my voice, and get attention that would lead to auditions for serious work like 'Angels in America.' But I backed myself into a corner with 'Grease,' and it took me 17 years to get out.
Billy Porter
#17. I want to keep changing the world. It's possible. The black gay lead is ready. It's time.
Billy Porter
#18. You can't ever put yourself in a position where someone is requiring you to inhabit somebody else's energy. You have to own your thing, or own it with very fiber of your being.
Billy Porter
#19. Just because you're working does not mean you're making money. That's two very different things in show business.
Billy Porter
#20. I always said if I played a drag queen, I'd want to create a template with the realness they talk about in 'Paris Is Burning.'
Billy Porter
#21. For me, I really feel like if there's not a real, true connection to the material, I don't need to sing it. I don't need to sing songs just because I like them anymore. I've done that.
Billy Porter
#22. I want to do work that means something to me so that when I go to work at the theater eight times a week, I want to be there.
Billy Porter
#23. I just feel like we as a human race tend to fear that which we don't understand. It's cause for a lot of bad things and bad behavior to exist on the planet. Artists have a way of touching people and changing minds in a way that sometimes other mediums don't.
Billy Porter
#24. How can you be of service to something other than your own ego and bank account, in a business that's inherently narcissistic?
Billy Porter
#25. I love the community of theater. There is something about the camaraderie: People who show up eight times a week to do a show. It's unlike any other business. It's just lovely. You feel like you're in a family.
Billy Porter
#26. Broadway! Broad-way! I don't aspire to the middle. I aspire to the tip-tip-top of it all.
Billy Porter
#27. My truth is I am gay and out, and if I can't do that in my music, then I don't need it. Fortunately, I do feel like there is a movement against homophobia, and I hope to be part of that.
Billy Porter
#28. When you're doing what you love, it's not exhausting at all, actually. It's completely empowering and exhilarating.
Billy Porter
#29. There was a time in the '90s where, as an African-American man, you had to be a misogynistic R&B star or a rapper, and I didn't fit into either one of those. I was advised by my label to remain closeted at that time.
Billy Porter
#30. I'm in love with what a high heel does to a leg: how it makes a woman or a man feel. It's empowering.
Billy Porter
#31. Seeing Jennifer Holliday from 'Dreamgirls' perform on the Tony Awards telecast and later discovering Barbra Streisand by listening to her albums at the Carnegie Library in Pittsburgh really changed everything for me.
Billy Porter
#33. People don't see me in traditional roles; I'm not getting cast in the revival of 'Company' as Bobby.
Billy Porter
#34. I would love to be able to turn my recording career into something that is substantial, and where I can go and tour with an orchestra.
Billy Porter
#35. All you need to do is turn on the news, and in five minutes, you're depressed with the state of the world. Choosing joy is a completely active choice. It doesn't just happen. You can't just say, 'I want to be happy.' You have to take action.
Billy Porter
#36. I was so beat down as a young person - being black, being gay, being unable to assimilate because I could never, ever pull off being butch.
Billy Porter
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