Benjamin Percy Quotes

The big difference between the radio show and the TV work is that I don't have to work by committee on the radio show. I'm the DJ; I can play what I want and suffer or get praised by that. With a TV show, it's much more of a collaboration, and the song that I might think is perfect may get shot down and vice versa.

Any time you turn off and let someone else make any artistic decision for you, you make a mistake.

The only way you can really deal with creative people is with very loose reins.

I didn't come to Hollywood to be subservient to anyone else's vision.

I love to work. It's the idea of having someone else tell you how to make your film or how to sell it - that's the part I can't really deal with. I would rather do 1,000 things that are work than deal with one thing that's a political problem.

I believe in creative control. No matter what anyone makes, they should have control over it.

With acting I am being led by the script, other actors, the director, etc. But with songwriting I feel it is much more self reliant and allows me to be in the creative experience without being as dependent on others.

I don't miss directing at all, and I don't miss screenwriting either because somebody's always telling you to do something different.

I do love being solo because I can have more of my own creative input to every aspect of my career.

I've always believed that the director does whatever the hell he wants. That's what you sign on for as an actor - I can't stand it when you have actors who are trying to leverage directors into doing things they don't want to do.

Why hire these geniuses if they're forced to stick with the script? You want to empower your actors as collaborators.

It's really fun to go back and forth from acting projects to directing projects. You don't have as much responsibility when you're acting, but you have more fun. But then you miss having that responsibility, and so you go back and torture yourself and make a movie.

Sometimes directors will hire you and say, 'Oh, we love your work.' And then they start to tell you how to do it. I say, 'Hey, man, back off. You hired me to do it. Let me do it.'

To be given the reins of creativity is a beautiful thing when you're used to just showing up to a casting and standing there having clothes put on you.

I love having the control over the end result and not having to go through some committee to get something approved. I feel sorry for people, like actors, because unless you're Woody Allen or Mel Gibson, they don't have much say in the decisions that affect their work.

I've always wanted to keep my own personal creative space, and do everything myself.

I always say I want creative control. A lot of people don't think about that. And that's what every artist should think of - being creative and not just a puppet.

The key is you don't want to control the controlled stuff too much and you don't want to be too free flowing in uncontrolled situations. That can be a contentious issue with some directors. The joy of my career is I've gotten to work with great directors who get that balance.

I could never work in that kind of commercial environment where the stars have a lot to say, where the producers kind of push you around and tell you who to cast and who not to cast. I'm just not interested in that at all.

I want to make decisions as to where I want to go as an artist, and to get to it in my own way

It's a pretty great thing to have a record that at the end of the day you're not totally sick of and you're actually proud of. We're pretty lucky, because a lot of bands come out with their first record on a label and they're forced to make decisions they might not stand behind because someone's telling them it's a good idea. We didn't have to do that. I think that's one of the things I'm most thankful for.

My dream is to do whatever I want without any interference from the record company.

It's not the norm when creators have any protections with regards to creative control. And so it took some time, I think, for the strip to gain enough popularity where I had enough leverage to come in and say, "It has to be done in a certain way or it's not going to be done at all," and then have people willing to put up with that who were ultimately paying for it. You know, for them to be willing to kind of concede those kind of things. It just takes time, you know?

I enjoy doing independent films more, only because there's more freedom. There's not as many cooks tampering with what you are trying to do.

Sometimes people think of actors as marionettes - everybody else makes the decisions for us - and, you know, really, making this decision [of which roles to take] is the only thing you lay claim to.