Anna Deavere Smith
Anna Deavere Smith
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionActress
Date of Birth18 September 1950
CountryUnited States of America
kids thinking people
I think as a kid I always liked to listen to people. I loved hearing stories.
thinking practice space
What my work is, is my approach to it. It's the practice. And my work is about the effort that I make to get there. And I think if there's anything artistic, it's in that middle space.
enough ifs
If you say a word often enough it becomes you.
caring thinking way
I think we need leadership that helps us remember that part of what we are about is caring about more than the person right next to us, but the folks across the way.
teacher children people
I was a mimic when I was a child. I mimicked the teacher and made friends that way, actually. That was a very subversive activity, because I was a goody-goody who never got in trouble. But if I went off in the corner and mimicked the teacher, people loved it.
voice giving way
My work is about giving voice to the unheard, and reiterating the voice of the heard in such a way that you question, or re-examine, what is the truth.
discipline crucial
Discipline — both mental and physical — is crucial.
self acting technique
A lot of acting techniques are very self-oriented.
hands land ideas
The American idea is as promising, imaginative, and full of the unexpected as the land itself. The land represents freedom - the frontier, the ability to make a new future with your own bare hands.
doors way unconscious
I never know when somebody's going to knock on the door of my own unconscious in a way that I wouldn't have anticipated.
selfish mirrors doe
My main concern is theater, and theater does not reflect or mirror society. It has been stingy and selfish, and it has to do better.
race disrespect taught
Somehow we can't live outside the politics of race. There's something very deep in all of us, that is taught to us when we are very, very little. Which is the disrespect and fear of the other.
sick people want
People who are sick, or who have been sick, or have come close to death have a lot to say - and they want you to hear it.
color green los-angeles
Probably the person who said the only color in Los Angeles is green was right.