Hari Nef Quotes

Author Image

Hari Nef

Profession : Actress

Birth : October 21, 1992

Being a woman is an option, being trans is an option, and they're options that appeal to me. We need to listen to people - not labels, not semantics.

Hari Nef

When I don't wear makeup, it's not because I'm lazy, but it's me making this radical bid for the feminization of my body and being confident in that.

Hari Nef

I don't want to say that women who do use makeup or get breast implants or have fake nails are insecure. They're entitled to that, and they should do that if that's what they want to do. But for me, there are no answers. It's just a matter of preference and choice and fetish.

Hari Nef

If I ever called myself an activist, I regret it, and I was cornered into it by an industry who couldn't justify me taking up space without saying that I had some kind of radical political agenda because they saw my participation as a radical political thing. Which it was not.

Hari Nef

I've gone from the edgy girl to the girl you call for H&M and L'Oreal, which is something neither I nor the myriad agencies that rejected me when I tried to get signed could have predicted.

Hari Nef

When it comes to modeling, I always feel like my body is a myth or a story that is told by other people, and no one knows what my body really looks like.

Hari Nef

I see a Reiki healer from time to time. She sits on my bed, and I lie in her lap. She puts her hands on me for about 45 minutes, and she reads my energy. Whenever I'm having a hard time, I call her. I also go to weekly therapy, and that has been invaluable. Also, getting on medication for my 'neural atypicalities,' I guess we might call them.

Hari Nef

Sometimes it feels like people can't wrap their head around the notion that an 'androgynous' trans woman with shorter hair could be beautiful.

Hari Nef

Fashion has always captivated me because, like I said, it has the potential to create narratives about what's beautiful, aspirational, chic, masculine, feminine, glamorous, etc. Generally, this power is dispatched in useless ways.

Hari Nef

I want to play Lady Macbeth. I have a big chip on my shoulder about Lady Macbeth. People usually play her as this cold, Greek witch, but there's no evidence of that in the text! I think her intentions are pure.

Hari Nef

When people ask me what I do, I tell them that I 'do things in front of people.' I don't know why I do what I do. I've tried working behind the scenes. I felt left out!

Hari Nef

I majored in drama and theater arts at Columbia and was always in acting studio, but that was a liberal arts degree, not a bachelor of arts degree, so I didn't have a traditional conservatory training. There was a lot of reading and a lot of writing involved, and only about 30 percent of my classes were directly theater-related.

Hari Nef

I admire actresses who are willing to jettison the easy route toward exposure and commercial success as an actor in favor or a slow burn, choosing projects carefully, and building an artistic practice over time that feels specific to who they are as artists.

Hari Nef

I'm not so fascinated by these ingenue roles. I tend to gravitate towards women in plays or shows or films that are more chaotic or have something dire going on.

Hari Nef

If you're anything other than a white, cisgender, able-bodied dude, people are going to project narratives, imagery, and context onto you that you might not necessarily see for yourself.

Hari Nef

I'm fun, ruthless, articulate, impatient, maybe a little cavalier. I'm a woman and a feminist. I'm transgender. I'm an actress, a reluctant writer, occasionally a potato-shaped model.

Hari Nef

I identify with anyone who logged online in elementary school and never logged off.

Hari Nef

I identify with Sad Girls.

Hari Nef

I can say with confidence that my trans/transfeminine identity emerges as the most heavily problematized aspect of my lived experience. My transness is not a problem on its own but problematized by a society that reviles it, hates it, fails to understand it - or does not wish to.

Hari Nef