Mura Masa Quotes

An agent is a person who is sore because an actor gets 90% of what they make.

Let us be clear: I take ten times more money for a concert than for an opera performance.

Once you sign on the dotted line, in terms of a contract with a musical, it's a huge commitment. When you're younger, that's fine; you can take it on, and I still go out, and I still sing 15-20 songs - and I can do that - a night.

I don't view the fans in the way that most performers do. As a mass of people who have paid money, I know what they want. It's a very, very, very, very, very low common denominator.

Everyone seems to have this awareness of Charlie Chaplin because he was a really good businessman while Buster Keaton wasn't.

The studios have been taken over by marketing people and accountants.

But we didn't have the financial structure, like the right attorneys, the right managers, the right accountants, and we were going against the grain of what black entertainers is supposed to do.

You've got to know business before you go to show business.

I mean, when I started out I was billing per hour, like a shrink because you would sit with somebody and work. But most of it, if it's for a live show it's usually a buy-out. A flat fee.

Why is it that the hot chicks never can sing?

It's one thing to sit back and say, 'Hey let's play a club, that will be great,' but then you get there and say, 'Hey wait, this is the dressing room? Where's my dressing room?'

I know there are people, if I go into a market or a city for the first time, there are people that are there that just want to see the famous person, or the guy from 'Dumb and Dumber' or whatever movie they liked. And that's fine, it gets them in the door, but then it's my job to give them something different.

We are just at the studio, me and my choreographers, we are spending like 30 nights and we are thinking, what is my next dance move? Because in Korea there are huge expectations about my dancing. So it was a lot of pressure.

Trouble is, I don't get to play a lot at the moment because I've just signed a contract where I've got to do 200 shows a year in pubs, so the golf's fallen away a bit.

This industry is 90 percent business, 10 percent talent.

To the general public, show business may just mean the artistic part, but the dollar and cents element is the reality every performer has to face.

I have been in the business long enough to know what an intense amount of work it takes to operate a theater company.

I performed in a bowling alley before while people were still bowling. Cut the check, and I will perform anywhere.

Hollywood is just a bunch of people going around in Learjets to other people asking them if they've got any money? Well, they might have if they didn't spend it all on jets.

You don't hear a film director saying 'Money mustn't go out of the industry' to actors. You don't hear a concert promoter saying 'We must make sure that money doesn't go out of our industry' to Elton John. Some people in football seem to think, 'Never mind the players, let's get on with the game.'

There's no business like show business, but there are several businesses like accounting.

I'm a TV man, not a money man.

Musicians burn through more cash than the Federal Reserve.

So we are pretty convinced we don't want to play huge stadiums unless we can play them well.

You can't hold me to the same standard as the president or a school teacher. I'm just a comedian. My job is like Archie Bunker.