John Cameron Mitchell

“Hedwig is on a quest; she's on a quest as much as Jason and the Argonauts, as much as the boy in 'A.I.' She's looking for something. She's looking for her other half, and she's on tour. Monsters, Cyclops - maybe they're her mom? - appear on various islands.”

“My mom was a little weepy. My dad was very logical about it. Once they realized you can't change, they wanted to know that you can be happy and be gay. Once they realized that, they were very cool about it.”

“Drag wasn't really on Broadway. It was considered low-class.”

“I did take comfort in the vespers and compline. I might have become a monk if I hadn't come out.”

“I thought, 'O.K., if I'm a valuable person and an independent entity, then I don't have to worry about what people think of me. I can reach out now.'”

“I like all kinds of input.”

“Nothing is a calling card. Everything is what you do. If you do it in order to get somewhere else, you're not actually doing it. If you're thinking, 'What is the weird thing I want to make with my friends?' money and other things will come later.”

“What's interesting is that some of the things I'm interested in talking about is a story which has to do with the second half of your life, which can be told through Hedwig's voice because she's older. If the timeline is consistent, she's as old as me.”

“It's cool when frat boys say, 'Yeah, 'Hedwig!' I'd like to see that same thing happen with 'Shortbus.'”

“I was brought up very Catholic, and the character of Tommy Gnosis got his name from there.”

“I like making art that's useful to people who have a harder road. Art is a tool to get through it; it's a tool to prepare for the worst. By envisioning it in an artistic context, you can make sense of it before and after it happens.”

“There's nothing more Broadway than 'Hedwig.' It's very family-friendly. There's innuendo and stuff, but not more than you'd see on TV.”

“Our feet are planted in the real world, but we dance with angels and ghosts.”

“I like the fact that it's like The Ramones. You just have to change your name, and you're a Ramone. You just have to put the wig on, and you're Hedwig. Women have played it. Gay men, straight men, you know.”

“I'm not interested in replicating 'Hedwig' like a virus.”

“Doing 'Hedwig' was so hard that I kind of burned out on acting.”

“Doing 'Hedwig' totally contributed to my acceptance of myself.”

“'Hedwig' isn't particularly based on me, but I think that it is autobiographical in terms of emotion.”

“'Hedwig' was born in '94. I was thinking of a theater piece; Hedwig was one of the characters.”

“'Hedwig' is not autobiographical, but what she goes through is clearly a big metaphor. She doesn't want to be what she is, but she comes to an understanding that what happened to her has actually made her whole.”