A biography for John Cameron Mitchellhasn’t been written yet.
“I walk out of my apartment, and St. Vincent's is standing there like a ghost ship. That was the ground zero of AIDS in New York: a conservative institution that quickly adapted to its unconventional patients and made heroic efforts to try and save them.”
“Drag is a little scary, especially for a gay man who's not comfortable with his feminine side.”
“The best things happen in the dark.”
“I would love for 'Hedwig' to be in every tiny shopping mall so every freakish kid like I was can have a broadening experience.”
“There are a lot of silly projects out there.”
“I quickly found that I didn't really fit into 'gay culture,' as identified by many gay people, and that it can be just as confining as straight culture, not least in the way that bisexual people are told that 'they can't make up their mind.'”
“Isn't it funny - why is it called a tennis bracelet? It doesn't seem very tennis, does it?”
“I'm an honorary old Jewish lady of the West Village.”
“I certainly wanted Hedwig's world to be one where identification and categories are fluid, changing, and confusing, as they are, really, in life.”
“I think I was scared of the drag thing, as a lot of gay boys are. It's sort of knocked out of you in junior high. I wouldn't find guys who were very feminine attractive. Then, doing 'Hedwig,' I got to be man and woman, really butch and really femme at the same time, and I realized, this is kind of the ideal.”
“Humor without sadness underneath it feels cheap and aggressive.”
“I guess historically, drag queens were imitating movie stars and luminaries. It's kind of nice to have a movie star imitating a drag queen.”
“Acceptance and assimilation, you know, breeds mediocrity and perhaps an even more sheep-like conformism in terms of what kind of music you're supposed to listen to if you're gay... What are you supposed to look like? What's your body supposed to look like?”
“As you get older, you treasure the beautiful things of the past but also see things more clearly.”
“In rock and roll, homosexuality was accepted, but it was less cool to say it.”
“Having been an actor in Hollywood for a certain amount of time, I always felt a pressure to be sort of a neutral person. 'Don't do anything to your hair. Don't tell them your age. Don't tell them you're gay. Don't tell them anything that could limit you, specify you as a person.' I always hated that, actually moved out of L.A. because of that.”
“I don't like being choreographed to a T. I like to take steps and make them my own.”
“Getting the blood moving through your body does do wonders for your complexion.”
“I've always liked a good joke that everybody can laugh at.”
“I'd like to do some female roles again.”