Billy Porter

When you grow up in the church, the only translation in that insular world that people understand is preaching. You're supposed to be a minister. So I was going down that path, and then I saw the Tonys.

I'm trying to embrace social media because it gives artists a little more power than we've had in the past.

When I had a record deal in the '90s, that was my dream - to make an album like Barbra Streisand's Broadway album - and they laughed me out of the room. Broadway wasn't cool. But artists like Michael Buble and Josh Groban have brought the classic genre back to the forefront, so I'm trying to find my way inside that market.

When I was younger, I did what I now call 'extreme singing.' I could do this thing where I would sing really high. I can't really do that anymore, at my age. My voice has shifted. It's changed.

I was so beat down as a young person - being black, being gay, being unable to assimilate because I could never, ever pull off being butch.

I grew up when one of America's greatest black playwrights, August Wilson, was writing about life in Pittsburgh, but I never saw myself in any of his straight-male plays. And then I see 'Angels,' which was so honest and painful, and it had this black drag queen in it, Belize, with a big heart. I finally had a character to relate to.

I took 'Grease' to play my trump card, my voice, and get attention that would lead to auditions for serious work like 'Angels in America.' But I backed myself into a corner with 'Grease,' and it took me 17 years to get out.

I wouldn't be caught dead in red.

I want to do work that means something to me so that when I go to work at the theater eight times a week, I want to be there.

There was a time in the '90s where, as an African-American man, you had to be a misogynistic R&B star or a rapper, and I didn't fit into either one of those. I was advised by my label to remain closeted at that time.

Seeing Jennifer Holliday from 'Dreamgirls' perform on the Tony Awards telecast and later discovering Barbra Streisand by listening to her albums at the Carnegie Library in Pittsburgh really changed everything for me.

People don't see me in traditional roles; I'm not getting cast in the revival of 'Company' as Bobby.

Just by the nature of making the choice to be true to who I am, I'm political. Sometimes that's all you need to do: Show up and be black, gay and Christian in America and actually say it out loud. And refuse to let anything or anybody take that away from you.

For me, I really feel like if there's not a real, true connection to the material, I don't need to sing it. I don't need to sing songs just because I like them anymore. I've done that.

I just feel like we as a human race tend to fear that which we don't understand. It's cause for a lot of bad things and bad behavior to exist on the planet. Artists have a way of touching people and changing minds in a way that sometimes other mediums don't.

Many movie stars or American Idol contestants sort of fall into theater... and say, 'Oh, yeah, I would love to do theater.' And then they get here and say, 'Oh, wait a minute, this actually is a craft!' It's not just show up one day and do it. It's show up eight times a week, twice on Wednesdays and twice on Saturdays.

If you gauge how you're doing on whether somebody is responding vocally or not, you're up a creek. You can't do that; you kind of have to be inside of your work and play the scene. And tell the story every day. Tell the story. Tell the story. Regardless of how people are responding, I'm going to tell the story.

You can't ever put yourself in a position where someone is requiring you to inhabit somebody else's energy. You have to own your thing, or own it with very fiber of your being.

Broadway! Broad-way! I don't aspire to the middle. I aspire to the tip-tip-top of it all.

I had something nobody else could do - I sang in a way that separated me - and, when you're trying to get noticed, you play your trump card.

I don't in any way disparage any time I've had in the trenches because it really has made me the artist I am today.

For years I tried to put myself in a box, and it frustrated me, so I had to let go and let the universe take its course.

Just because you're working does not mean you're making money. That's two very different things in show business.

All you need to do is turn on the news, and in five minutes, you're depressed with the state of the world. Choosing joy is a completely active choice. It doesn't just happen. You can't just say, 'I want to be happy.' You have to take action.

When you're doing what you love, it's not exhausting at all, actually. It's completely empowering and exhilarating.