For me, I really feel like if there's not a real, true connection to the material, I don't need to sing it. I don't need to sing songs just because I like them anymore. I've done that.

- Billy Porter

I always said if I played a drag queen, I'd want to create a template with the realness they talk about in 'Paris Is Burning.'

- Billy Porter

I do 'sissy with a heart of gold' really well.

- Billy Porter

I had something nobody else could do - I sang in a way that separated me - and, when you're trying to get noticed, you play your trump card.

- Billy Porter

I wouldn't be caught dead in red.

- Billy Porter

I'm in love with what a high heel does to a leg: how it makes a woman or a man feel. It's empowering.

- Billy Porter

I'm trying to embrace social media because it gives artists a little more power than we've had in the past.

- Billy Porter

I've always been passionate about fashion.

- Billy Porter

People don't see me in traditional roles; I'm not getting cast in the revival of 'Company' as Bobby.

- Billy Porter

We need to understand that whatever we do, we're all human beings first.

- Billy Porter

When you grow up in the church, the only translation in that insular world that people understand is preaching. You're supposed to be a minister. So I was going down that path, and then I saw the Tonys.

- Billy Porter

I was fine being in the closet at the beginning of my career because that's what you were supposed to be - until I realized that it didn't serve anybody, and I was left feeling utterly empty. This is who I am, so I've gotta be me.

- Billy Porter

If you gauge how you're doing on whether somebody is responding vocally or not, you're up a creek. You can't do that; you kind of have to be inside of your work and play the scene. And tell the story every day. Tell the story. Tell the story. Regardless of how people are responding, I'm going to tell the story.

- Billy Porter

My truth is I am gay and out, and if I can't do that in my music, then I don't need it. Fortunately, I do feel like there is a movement against homophobia, and I hope to be part of that.

- Billy Porter

Seeing Jennifer Holliday from 'Dreamgirls' perform on the Tony Awards telecast and later discovering Barbra Streisand by listening to her albums at the Carnegie Library in Pittsburgh really changed everything for me.

- Billy Porter

There was a time in the '90s where, as an African-American man, you had to be a misogynistic R&B star or a rapper, and I didn't fit into either one of those. I was advised by my label to remain closeted at that time.

- Billy Porter

There's this misconception that I've been turning down roles. It's just not true. The reality is, there was nothing for me to do, nobody was calling, the phone wasn't ringing.

- Billy Porter

When I had a record deal in the '90s, that was my dream - to make an album like Barbra Streisand's Broadway album - and they laughed me out of the room. Broadway wasn't cool. But artists like Michael Buble and Josh Groban have brought the classic genre back to the forefront, so I'm trying to find my way inside that market.

- Billy Porter

When I was younger, I did what I now call 'extreme singing.' I could do this thing where I would sing really high. I can't really do that anymore, at my age. My voice has shifted. It's changed.

- Billy Porter

I want to do work that means something to me so that when I go to work at the theater eight times a week, I want to be there.

- Billy Porter