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Each Environment Is Different, Each Job Is Different, And Each Realm Of Creativity That They Give You Is Different. You Try To Do The Best You Can And Put As Much Time Into It As You Can, But Different Jobs Have Different Circumstances Come About.

-Michael Rapaport

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Each Environment Is Different,

Michael Rapaport

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Each Environment Is Different, Each Job Is Different, And Each Realm Of Creativity That They Give You Is Different. You Try To Do The Best You Can And Put As Much Time Into It As You Can, But Different Jobs Have Different Circumstances Come About.

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My Favorite Part Is Just Being Able To Say And Do Things That You Can't Do In Real Life, And Behaving In A Way That's Just Not Really Acceptable, In The Real World.

But It All Came, And For Me, Hip-hop Has Done More For Racial Divide And Racial Sort Of Bringing Together Than Anything In The Last 30 Years. Seeing People Like Eminem Sounding Like Somebody Like Jay-z And Just The Racial Aspects Of It All.

My Freestyling Ability Is Nonexistent. I Can't Even Write A Verse If I Tried To Sit Anywhere And Write One. Being A Good Rapper Is Hard To Do. I'm A Good Rapaport, But That's About It.

When You're Playing This Bad Of A Character, It's Obviously Not Reality For Someone Who's Not Living That Life.

A Beautiful Girl Can Make You Dizzy, Like You've Been Drinking Jack And Coke All Morning. She Can Make You Feel High Full Of The Single Greatest Commodity Known To Man - Promise. Promise Of A Better Day. Promise Of A Greater Hope. Promise Of A New Tomorrow. This Particular Aura Can Be Found In The Gait Of A Beautiful Girl. In Her Smile, In Her Soul, The Way She Makes Every Rotten Little Thing About Life Seem Like It's Going To Be Okay.

The Effect Hip-hop Had On Me Was Enormous. I Was Exposed To It By Happenstance. My Father Worked At A Radio Station In New York Called Wktu Disco 92. It Was The First Radio Station In New York City To Play Disco In The Late '70s.

Being A Part Of Independent-film World, The Independent-film Community, That's What You Do. You Support Each Other. If Someone's Doing A Movie And You Trust Them, You Roll The Dice. Sometimes It's Gonna Be Good, Sometimes It's Gonna Be Something That's Like, "oh I Don't Know What The Hell That Is." But I've Been More Fortunate Than Not To Have It Work Well.

At The End Of The Day, My Sole Goal, When I Go Into Any Scene, Is To Try To Be As Honest As I Possibly Can, And Then Everything Else Is Second. The Most Important Thing For Me Is To Just Be As Honest As I Possibly Can.

The End Of The Day

Were There Certain Things That I Didn't Feel Were Dignified Enough To Make It Into The Movie? Yeah.

Like Any Family, Like Any Group - The Beatles, Led Zeppelin, Epmd, Public Enemy - They've Had Bumps In The Road. I Just Think That Because A Tribe Called Quest Is So Precious To Fans, They Were Concerned About Unveiling Some Of Those Things.

I Would Love To Document The Roots; I Think They Have An Interesting Story. I Have A Curiosity About Them. Their Musicality And Their Live Performances I Think Would Be Great, And I Have A Feeling That There Are Stories Behind Each One Of Them.

When I Was A Kid, My First Favorite Song Was Probably Lou Reed's "walk On The Wild Side."

I Don't Think The Subject Of A Documentary Film Should Be Producers On It.

Documentary Films

Right Now I'm Taking A Break From Hip-hop Documentaries. But I Would Do It If Things Lined Up.

Honestly, I'm Not Listening To Much Of What's Going On Today.

I'm A New York Person. I've Never Gone Out Of The Way To Speak To The Press To Change My Persona - I Probably Should Have. It's Too Late Now. But When I First Started I Was Like, "i'm Gonna Stay This Way. I'm Gonna Be This Way," And I Continued To. I Probably Should Have Sugarcoated It Like, "this Is Not Really The Way I Am - I'm An Actor."

The Thing About New York Is You Can Leave Your House Without A Plan And Find The Day. You Can't Do That In Los Angeles. You Need To Get In Your Car, All This, You Can't Just Drive Around Like A Lunatic. In New York, You Can Literally Walk Outside, And Wind Up Anywhere.

Only A Genius Can Play A Fool.

I'm Identified As A New York Actor, I Sound Like I'm From New York, And I Couldn't Be More Proud Of It.

I'm Not Going To Try And Change How People Perceive Me. I Think It's Important To Be A Contradiction. People Are Contradictions; Everyone Has Contradictions. So I Don't Expect Anyone To Look At Me Differently.

To Make Independent Films, You Can't Think About Them Too Much, Ponder On Them Too Much, Get Overwhelmed By The Enormity Of It.

Positive Doesn't Mean Unflawed: It Means Human And Vulnerable. If You Make A Film And You're Portraying The Subject With Respect, You're Gonna Do It In An Honest Way.

Each Environment Is Different, Each Job Is Different, And Each Realm Of Creativity That They Give You Is Different. You Try To Do The Best You Can And Put As Much Time Into It As You Can, But Different Jobs Have Different Circumstances Come About.

I Grew Up In New York City In The '80s, And It Was The Epicenter Of Hip-hop. There Was No Internet. Cable Television Wasn't As Broad. I Would Listen To The Radio, Hear Cars Pass By Playing A Song, Or Tape Songs Off Of The Radio. At That Time, There Was Such An Excitement Around Hip-hop Music.

I Don't Want To Misrepresent Who I Am Personally. I Don't Want My Kids To See Me On A Talk Show And Say, "you're Talking Different" Or "you Look Different, Dad." I'm Not Gonna Be An Animal; I Know How To Conduct Myself.

Being A Good Rapper Is Hard To Do. I'm A Good Rapaport, But That's About It.

I See These Other Actors Come Up With This Tough-guy Personas And Now When They're On Talk Shows They're All... But That's Not Really The Way They Are. I Probably Could Have Used A Little Bit Of That. At One Point I Was Labeled "the King Of Dumb White Guys." I Was Offended By That When I Was Younger, But I Understand What That's From, So I Was Like, "only A Genius Can Play A Fool." But I'm Very Aware Of That, And I'll Play Into It And Use It However I Need To Use It.

If My Son Was An Actor I Would Tell Him, "don't Let People Know As Much About You As I Let People Know About Me." Because I Think Professionally, It's An Easier Road. That Would Be Something I Would Tell A Young Actor. But It's Cool.

Sometimes You Know About A Job Four Months In Advance. Sometimes You Know About A Job Four Days In Advance. It's All Different, And My Thing Is Just To Try To Stay Prepared. It's Like Being A Boxer. You Never Know When You're Going To Get Your Next Fight, So You Have To Just Stay In Shape, Mentally And Physically And Creatively.

Being No. 1. It's Talked About All Of The Time In Hip-hop. 'i'm Still No. 1! I'm The Best! I'm The Greatest Of All Time!' It's The Same Mentality In Sports.

I'm Always Gonna Be An Actor, So I'm Trying To Figure Out What I'm Gonna Do Next. I Would Love To Make A Documentary Again Someday, But I Need To Take A Break From It.

I Heard Q-tip On The Jungle Brothers' Song 'the Promo.' It Was Very Exciting. It Was Very New. The Music And The Culture Around Hip-hop Was Evolving. I Think There's An Emotional Quality To Their Music And There's A Vulnerability To The Music. For Me, A Tribe Called Quest Was My Beatles.

A Tribe Called Quest Music Was So Inclusive, So Conscious, It Brought Such A Community Together.

I Love Doing Things That Are Titillating. I Think Race Can Be Very Funny, And I Think I'm Very Comfortable Discussing It And Bringing It Up.

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I Love My Kids, And The Moments I Have With Them, And It's Kind Of Weird, It's Such An Age Old Cliche, But The Way That My Sons, The Way They Make Me Feel When I Look At Them, The Way They Say Things, No One Else Would Probably React To Them, But It's A Special Thing For Me.

To Be Able To Play Somebody That Says And Does Pretty Much Whatever He Wants Is Great.

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So To Compare The Beatles, Obviously The Beatles Are The Beatles, But In Hip-hop Terms, Tribe Is The Beatles. Grandmaster Flash And The Furious Five Are The Beatles. Big Daddy Kane Is Jimi Hendrix. It Means That Much To People That Grew Up With It.

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