J. Tillman Quotes

I almost never try to make the audience comfortable. I wouldn't want that if I were in the audience.

My audience expects me to push the limits, to be politically incorrect. I do that because for me, that's the only place where the fun is, when I get to push the boundaries and make people laugh at things that they probably didn't want to laugh at.

I cannot imagine any boy of spirit who would not be delighted to play a drunkard even to vomiting in front of his Sunday school. Indeed, the vomiting might be the chief attraction of the role.

I want to shake people up so bad, that when they leave a nightclub where I've performed, I just want them to be to pieces.

I think it would be fun to die onstage! Just drop dead in the middle of my show? That wouldn't be so bad.

My first gigs were at university: I'd dress up as Jesus, jump off a cross and dance to a Mick Jagger song. I don't know if it was funny or not, but it was a start.

They're reacting and that's wonderful. It's better than them sitting there doing nothing. I say make them react - do whatever's in your power to move the audience, and if that's where it is, and there where it is with America, sex and violence, then I say project it.

I'd rather play here in this small bar and just do a good show. Because it's fun and there's no expectations, it's encouragement to be different, do something new.

We like reactions - a reaction is walking out on us, a reaction is throwing tomatoes at the stage, that's a healthy psychological reaction.

Unless an entire row of people got up in the middle of a performance and left the theater in disgust, I felt as though I hadn't done my job.

I do know one thing: I wish people were doing more dangerous musicals, more courageous musicals and not just falling into the trap of trying to figure out what the public wants, because you find out that the public very often wants what's good.

I like pushing the envelope. I like pushing myself and the audience, whether it's a TV show or live. I like to throw people over the edge of the cliff and scare the wits out of them, but then pull them back and make them safe.

Our live set's become increasingly complex recently; we've been doing stuff that's been vastly too much information for most people to deal with and I think it's quite interesting watching how people behave in those situations, under those circumstances.

Marilyn Manson is a criticism of gimmickry, while being itself a gimmick.

James Bond has a license to kill, rockstars have a license to be outrageous. Rock is about grabbing people's attention.

The only really good piece of advice I have for my students is, 'Write something you'd never show your mother or father.' And you know what they say? 'I could never do that!'

I always feel that art in general and acting in particular should make the audience a little uncomfortable, to slap them and wake them up.

I never deliberately set out to shock, but when people don't walk out of my plays I think there is something wrong.

I've been getting in trouble my whole life and I really don't care what anybody thinks of what I do on stage as a comic.

I will concede to you one thing - 'Hustler' is offensive, even to the point of being iconoclastic. That's our purpose - to be offensive.

When I was playing piano, it was like, 'I'm going to write a song using all the white keys.' My music director, who knew my jazz background, suggested I try big-band music, so we spent a year experimenting with it in concert, and the audience reaction was really good.

I know I'm not the greatest singer or dancer, but that doesn't interest me. I'm interested in being provocative and pushing people's buttons.

I can bring a crowd down. There should be a contest for that.

No one knows this, but when I would play the clubs back in '65, '66, they used to call me 'Screaming Chicken,' 'cause I would go out and scream, fall on the ground, beat myself, smash stuff, jump through the ceiling, roll on the floor, and act like I was having epileptic fits.

I think, as an actress, it is amazing to shock your audiences.