Leslie Odom, Jr. Quotes

Leslie Odom, Jr.

Profession : Actor

Birth : August 6, 1981

The record company felt wisely that we should get something out before I left 'Hamilton' or around awards time, and that deadline was not easy.

Leslie Odom, Jr.

I started out with this 'La Boheme' fantasy, but as you get older, the 'La Boheme' fantasy becomes less sexy, believe me.

Leslie Odom, Jr.

I remember when I was in 'Rent,' Daphne Rubin-Vega threw a party. At the time, she had a loft in TriBeCa, and the elevator opened right into her apartment. I was like, 'I've never seen anything like that.' I didn't know it was possible.

Leslie Odom, Jr.

There was a lot of the 'Hamilton' experience that was like a locomotive. It was a hurricane, so the apartment often looked like a hurricane. There were clothes and shoes all over. We were getting more things in than we had room for. We had to figure out how to make space for all the blessings and goodness coming toward us.

Leslie Odom, Jr.

As an artist, I'm very used to waking up and sort of not knowing what my day's going to be and not knowing where my next paycheck is going to come from.

Leslie Odom, Jr.

I'm addicted to growth.

Leslie Odom, Jr.

I think that the best songs to sing are songs that you love, because you sing them with love when you love them.

Leslie Odom, Jr.

There's this Frank Wildhorn tune 'Sarah' - it's not a widely known tune, but it's my favorite song to sing.

Leslie Odom, Jr.

Donny Hathaway's 'For All We Know' is the song that I've sung the longest. It is a beautiful song about living in the moment and appreciating this very second. That is the song I did for my 'Rent' audition.

Leslie Odom, Jr.

I've been in a long-term relationship, and I'll tell you, it's never boring! People trying to merge their lives together always run into challenges.

Leslie Odom, Jr.

The time I spent in New York when I was 17 gave me the confidence to pursue my dreams with my whole heart.

Leslie Odom, Jr.

People are coming to you at their most vulnerable; they're showing you the parts of themselves that they're afraid to show: the parts that they're not so sure about, not so secure in. And so it's a really holy profession I think, teaching. If you do it right, it can change somebody's life.

Leslie Odom, Jr.

You gotta love this thing. Whatever you choose to pursue - medicine, law, writing, you have to love it. You study it, you eat it, you drink it, you try it, you do it, you love it in every way.

Leslie Odom, Jr.

I grew up in Philadelphia in a time where we took it for granted that we were supposed to be young and gifted and black. It was a culture of excellence - and all my friends were more talented than I was.

Leslie Odom, Jr.

It's still a political statement to stand on stage as a person of color and be excellent. We still need those images to combat the narrative we're often fed - as someone innately inferior or inexorably linked with lack.

Leslie Odom, Jr.

My dad was an early hip-hop fan.

Leslie Odom, Jr.

We didn't go to Broadway musicals when I was growing up; it was too expensive.

Leslie Odom, Jr.

I remember Ella Fitzgerald sort of coming into my life like a bolt of lightning - like, what is that? It was one of the purest examples of God in art that I'd ever seen.

Leslie Odom, Jr.

I've dedicated more than 15 years to this theater and television thing; I want to spend the next 10, 15 years or so devoted to music.

Leslie Odom, Jr.

I don't want to leave anything offstage.

Leslie Odom, Jr.