Uncomfortable Spotlight Quotes

I spent my whole life avoiding the public eye. At these food shows, I'm open quarry again.

I never want to draw attention to myself, but that's all I do.

I don't like my birthday. I don't like things that are directed towards me. It took me a long time to get over people asking me to write my name in the book.

More than anything else, being famous just didn't agree with me.

I'm aware that success can overwhelm you. The perception of you can be elevated to such a status that it's not you any more.

I'm a very reluctant frontman. I've seen reviews where they talk about my strong presence on stage, but it's nothing I do. It's like the person in a long grocery line who stands out because he's so agitated. He'll have presence, too.

I never wanted to be the guy people looked at. I don't think of myself as being a celebrity; it's too mortifying.

It's really hard to go out knowing that you are going to be the center of attention just about anywhere you go and that it's not going to be in a positive way.

It's a nightmare to sit and watch a film that I'm in. There's a horrible inescapability to it.

I went from a guy, kind of a working actor, a supporting player, to magazine covers and being offered the studio pictures really quickly. Nobody was comfortable with it. I wasn't really comfortable with it.

It puts you in a kind of a strange situation where everybody is looking at every little thing you do.

I find the theatre faintly embarrassing for the actors performing on stage. It seems rather showy-off in an undignified way.

You know I hate watching myself on TV, I know a lot of actors say that, but it's true for me.

When people stare at you, and you read about yourself in papers - at 13, it just got very confusing. I thought that if this is what it's like to be famous, I don't like it one bit.

I hate being looked at. Can't stand it. I know, I know - I picked the wrong career. I should have been a doctor. If you play certain parts you have this nice face painted on you, and then you have feel as if you have a responsibility to this idea of being beautiful. I hate that about our business.

Mantle didn't want to stick out, but he did. He didn't wish to be treated as special, but he was. He was uncomfortable being the center of attention, but he was the centerfielder for the most famous franchise in sports.

In those days I was mortified, because I was a serious actor in my own mind, and then all of a sudden I'm this hunk.

We writers are shy, nocturnal creatures. Push us into the light and the light blinds us.

All my life, I've felt people are looking at me. So, when I became known, it was like, 'I'm not imagining this any more. People genuinely are staring at me. Oh, Christ, now they're coming over!'

I don't enjoy public attention. I don't like being recognised, being clicked, or being written about. But then it is destiny. I am just going with the flow.

I don't think there's any kind of preparation for sudden celebrity. I think you almost have this slight nervous breakdown when that kind of media attention happens. I mean, you're doing the same kind of thing that you do all the time, only you have to make these weird adjustments. Like, you're buying a slice of pizza and somebody's outside photographing you which is weird - that's not normal! It's very uncomfortable.

You start noticing that people are noticing how you look, and it is a profoundly alienating experience when it first happens, where you go on TV and you say something about some topic of the day, and on the Internet people are like, 'What was up with that shirt?' 'What was up with your hair?' And you think, 'Oh, that's kind of a bummer.'

I didn't mean to be a TV presenter, I just hated modeling. It feels very odd that it's turned into this 'It-girl' thing. What does that even mean? I wear clothes and I go out. It's so weird.

It turns out that popularity is scary. I don't feel comfortable receiving so much attention from people; perhaps that's because I'm just a kampong boy.

It's a little strange when part of your family is in the public eye, and you're being put into a box that you're not necessarily in. That's when it starts to feel a bit odd: When you're being told who you are, but it's incorrect.