Writing authentically

I read a recent Esquire interview with Michael Keaton and was struck by his comment on being authentic, of his efforts to create something original:

“Over the years, I think, people—actors, writers, whatever—lose their frame of reference. Their frame of reference is based on somebody else who did this or did that. Performances. So it just becomes a reflection of what already works. Like a warm-up. And that’s an invitation to be inauthentic. Everything becomes, you know, the work of somebody who did that before. Then somebody becomes a version of a version of a version…I always wanted to be the version. You know, the thing.”