I started doing drag because I needed a creative outlet for myself.
There are many things I love about my job! For instance, as a creative outlet, there's no better way to express myself than through choreography and physical movement.
When I was pregnant, I wanted to take some time off from acting, but I still needed a creative outlet for myself. My first two books were created during my pregnancies and after giving birth to my first child.
If I have not the power to put myself in the place of other people, but must be continually burrowing inward, I shall never be the magnanimous creative person I wish to be. Yet I am hypnotized by the workings of the individual, alone, and am continually using myself as a specimen.
Creativity is an energy. It's a precious energy, and it's something to be protected. A lot of people take for granted that they're a creative person, but I know from experience, feeling it in myself, it is a magic; it is an energy. And it can't be taken for granted.
'Romance' is based on my entire creative process. I fall in love with an idea, obsess over it, isolate myself with it, and when I eventually introduce it to my friends, they all tell me that it's stupid.
I am the kind of guy who has never taken myself too seriously. I mean, I am very serious about what I do; I'm very serious about the creative process and everything, but at the end of the day, I am just another lucky geek who got to live out a dream, you know?
I would do a sort of violence to myself if I didn't express myself in the directly creative ways of writing, both words and music.
To me, creatively challenging myself is my version of owning the Nets.
I've never been a very prolific person, so when creativity flows, it flows. I find myself scribbling on little notepads and pieces of loose paper, which results in a very small portion of my writings to ever show up in true form.
I think a lot of social media creators have always been, like, content and haven't pushed the limits because no one else had pushed the limits before. I say to myself, 'How can I create my own TV show online every day and actually make it a real production and put effort into it?'
To remain a credible leader, I must always work first, hardest, and longest on changing myself. This is neither easy nor natural, but it is essential.
I know people think we drive around in these nice cars and we do whatever we want and our parents will pay our credit cards, but that's not the case. Sure, my parents were generous; I got a nice car at 16, but at 18 I was cut off. I've worked really hard. I opened the store myself.
I am certain that my family - my grandmother, mother and myself - had a credit score of zero when we arrived in 1976. There were no credit cards in the Soviet Union, and we didn't have any money.
If I did all the stuff I've been accused of - or credited with - there's no way I could make all this music. I'd be drinking myself into the grave.
When our family business separation was implemented, as the eldest member of the family, I had taken the entire burden of the debts. I believe, it was my mistake to have told myself that, 'Subhash, you can earn and repay the creditors.'
I don't consider myself to be that credulous.
I try not to feel pressure, because I feel like it kind of throws you off. I always try to focus on myself. But it does kind of creep into the back of my mind.
Sometimes I am so much my father's son that I give myself occasional creeps.
I have to make sure that I don't silence myself about the things that I believe in, because sometimes the fear creeps in of 'What if fewer people watch the show or fewer people hire me because I express my politics?' For me, the commitment is to never be quiet just because I'm in the public eye.
