Get QuoteDark Inspirational Quotes App

" White actors still get way more money in Hollywood. It's been that way for a very long time. I hope it'll change, but it's a matter of forcing that change. "

Related Quotes:

" There's a fast-track if you can do the networking. For some personalities it works, but for mine it doesn't. "

" I wasn't bad at school, but I was never a bookworm. "

" I love to play different roles. That's just the kind of actor I am. "

" Every single film I've done, it's about the character. "

" I lived in America for a long time before I started working as an actor. Some actors show up on set and have never done an American accent before, so they rely on a slew of technical mechanisms. Part of what makes an accent is understanding why people speak that way - you have to understand the culture. "

" I want to go to Sierra Leone with something - whether it's some sort of contribution to healthcare, or to the entertainment industry. My cousin is a nurse; we are talking about opening a clinic. "

" People expect me to be that guy. But I'm more east London boy than east Baltimore. "

" If you are going to call a film a 'black film' then you have to make a film that represents everyone that's black, which is almost impossible. That is why white films are not called white films, they are just called 'films.' "

" Twenty or 30 years from now, I'm going to be on a beach in Jamaica. "

" When I look at my body of work, I've played a lot of characters who are morally conflicted - 'I'm right, no I'm wrong, I don't know what to do!' I want to play more characters who don't care as much, and who aren't as measured. They are what they are, no apologies. "

" The role of my agent has just been to get me in the room. If I can get in the room - say the character is just a charming man who lives next door - then I'll walk in there and be as charming as I can and they will think to themselves, 'I don't see why we can't cast him.' "

" If I was gonna go to jail, I don't want to go to jail for stealing a bottle of water. I'll steal that $20 million. At least then it was worth it. "

" You watch yourself age and it's hard to feel like a sex symbol. "

" I have one of these bodies. When I was younger, I could never put weight on, and now that I'm a little older, there's a natural sort of chubbiness coming. But honestly, if I work out for a week, it drops off in no time. "

" You know, film is the ultimate goal in an actor's career. I mean, I still love TV. I have my feet firmly stamped in it. But my opportunities have been bigger and better. "

" The adrenaline feeling of jumping out of cliffs and bikes and all of that is very specific to the film. In 'Pac Rim' I'm not doing that so much. There isn't that touch stonework for me in it, but there is a lot of action. "

" It's really funny because the same people who loved me as Stringer Bell were the same people that were watching 'Daddy's Little Girls' literally in tears. "

" If you go to Africa and you're white, you're probably not going to get that much work either. But the fact is that there is a longer history of black integration in the U.S. I don't have any resentment about this: I did the maths, calculated it against my ambition and decided to leave England. "

" I did green screen for the first time! I wouldn't like to do a whole movie of green screen, though. You kind of forget the plot a little - like being in a Broadway play and doing it over and over and forgetting your line halfway through. "

" I knew that if I wanted to be all I could be, I would have to go to the U.S. It took three years to get the accent right. "

" Whether it's music or acting, that creativity all comes from the same source. "

" Africans, we hold on to our youths and whip them into shape. "

" Bond? It is a bit like saying, 'Do you want to play Superman?' Anyone would dream of it. It's one of the most coveted roles in film. I'd be honoured. But I don't know if it will actually happen. I'm just happy with the idea of being associated with it. It's nice there's a lot of good will. "

" I'm a little sheepish about it. Whenever I meet fans and they're like, 'Oh, you're so sexy,' I just don't get that. There's no way one man can be universally sexy. "

" The long and short of it is that I am now in a position in England to green light movies, and that's really excellent - not high-budget movies, but movies none the less. "

" It's actually quite criminal how 'The Wire' was systematically ignored. "

" I try to fit in workouts whenever I can. "

" In some countries, no one knows who Idris Elba is. "

" The less I talk about being black, the better. "

" It was deeply important for me to understand where Mandela came from. Because we know where he was going, and that's a famous story, but who was he? Where did he come from? What was his upbringing? "