Get QuoteDark Inspirational Quotes App

" The kinds of stories I want to be a part of telling are about delving into what it is to be a human being. "

Related Quotes:

" We start 'The Butler' in June and that's incredibly exciting for me because I get to work with the amazing Forest Whitaker again. It's a phenomenal script and a great, great role - I play his son. Oprah Winfrey is his wife and my mother. My character is a radical civil rights activist. "

" We can't afford to deny our past in a bid to be empowered. But what we can do is contextualize the past. "

" I love that as a black person I've experienced not being a minority. I think that's helped me to combat the minority mentality people can have here, which can stop them scaling the heights. "

" One of the skills you have to master in theater is the ability to make the audience believe that things that aren't there are there - just like when you're acting against CGI. Also, in a theater, the people in the back row can't see the whites of your eyes. Or your lips moving as you deliver dialogue. "

" Generally speaking, we as black people have been celebrated more for when we are subservient when we are not being leaders or kings or in the center of our own narrative driving it forward. "

" I'm not for one second condoning the actions of terrorists at all, but I do think there's a kind of terrorism that the media carries out on its own citizens, certainly in this country - and it's fear. "

" I truly think a long career is to keep the audience guessing and not being able to be boxed, and for me, I'm not hell-bent on playing the lead in things as long its an interesting character with phenomenally talented people, and it's a script that I feel is genuinely innovative, creative, and potentially interesting for an audience. "

" It's because films like 'Selma' are so rarely made that we end up putting them under the microscope. One, maybe two, a year. As a white person, you don't have that. You have the gamut. No one says to Oliver Stone, 'Another film about Vietnam? White characters again?' "

" I admire many actors, though I don't think there's anyone whose career I would want to mirror sort of by the beats. What I'm really looking to do is constantly defy expectations. I'm very curious to see if you can actually have a character actor and a movie star's career combined. "

" My parents are very hard working people who did everything they could for their children. I have two brothers and they worked dog hard to give us an education and provide us with the most comfortable life possible. My dad provided for his family daily. So, yes, that is definitely in my DNA. "

" I seem to be able to disassociate my insecurities. I know a lot of actors - some of the best actors in the world - can't bear to watch themselves and I have to say I can't relate to that. "

" You will never, I think, fully conquer the play. Every night, you see this Everest before you. It's that two, three hours and the audience, and you'd better tell the truth. "

" The only way I get a leading role in a studio picture is if Ryan Gosling can't play it, which is clearly the case with 'Selma.' If this was a non-colour-specific character, it wouldn't be me. It just wouldn't. "

" If my history, my indisputable British history, has never been visited, where does that put me? If we are only going to look at things that need a revisit, you are wiping me out of this country's history. That is unacceptable to me. "

" I like to think of myself as a physical actor. "

" I turn down a lot of movies because sometimes they glamorize violence or the darker side of sex or criminality. "

" If you're going to play human beings, and you're going to play them three-dimensionally, you have to show every side of them. "

" I would make the tea on a Daniel Day-Lewis set just to observe how he crafts roles like he did in 'My Left Foot.' That was the equivalent of seeing Haley's Comet for me. I just couldn't understand how that was possible. "

" If you look at your companies, and half of your staff are not female, and a decent percentage of them are not people of color, then you are part of the problem because you need people working for you and you need people in positions of leadership who can exercise their bias and who can exercise their perspective. "

" Although I am a Christian, with what religion has become - a tool for so much of the bad stuff - I just say to people that I'm a person of faith. "

" I wasn't one of those kids who grew up watching movies thinking, 'That's what I want to do when I grow up.' I didn't really particularly know I had an aptitude for it. "

" In my time since moving to the United States, I've found that there is a dearth of great writing for black people. There are stories that depict us in a way that isn't cliched or niche, and that a white person, a Chinese person, an Indian person can watch and relate to. Those are the stories I want to be a part of telling. "

" Asher means 'happy and blessed' which embodies my eldest. Caleb means 'stubborn and tenacious dog' and I can't even tell you how much that is my little boy! It was a useful warning. "

" Excellence is the best weapon against prejudice. I intend to be part of the solution and not the problem. You've just got to keep on banging out good performances. "

" I know I had my equivalents in Adrian Lester and Lenny James when I was at drama school. I remember David Harewood doing 'Othello' at the National, and Adrian Lester having done Cheek by Jowl's famous 'As You Like It and Company' at the Donmar. Not necessarily performances I saw, but just the fact they happened was massively encouraging. "

" I try as much as possible not to utter a single line that I don't believe in. "

" My grandfather was the king of a region in western Nigeria, where I had the privilege to live for seven years while growing up. But what we think of as royalty in the U.K. is very different to royalty in Nigeria: if you were to throw a stone there, you would hit about 30 princes. "

" For me, I actively look for projects that showcase people of color. "

" A film centered around the Second World War with a predominantly white cast would not have the pressure on it that 'Red Tails' has. "

" 'The Help' sheds light on a certain truth in America, but the tragedy is if we don't get a chance to contrast it with other points of views. 'The Butler' does that, 'Red Tails' does that and that's what '96 Minutes' does. "