Quotes by Ato Essandoh - Page 1 | QuoteForever

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I've never dated a Jewish woman.
Ato Essandoh / Television Actor
Dated
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I never thought I'd play an orthodox Jewish man.
Ato Essandoh / Television Actor
Orthodox
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There's some dues that you just have to pay in life.
Ato Essandoh / Television Actor
Dues
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Quentin Tarantino and Sam Jackson are the reasons I'm an actor.
Ato Essandoh / Television Actor
Tarantino
Jackson
Quentin Tarantino
Sam
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Our next black president, I think, can be more like Muhammad Ali.
Ato Essandoh / Television Actor
Muhammad
Ali
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What's nice about having an engineering degree is everybody thinks you are smart.
Ato Essandoh / Television Actor
Engineering
Nice
Smart
Thinking
Degree
Thinks
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Another benefit of going to Cornell is that 90 percent of your friends are doctors.
Ato Essandoh / Television Actor
Benefits
Doctors
Percent
Benefit
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I know I'm supposed to say this, but I really, genuinely think Matt Damon is a great dude.
Ato Essandoh / Television Actor
Genuinely
Dude
Matt
Matt Damon
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I was a chemical engineer in school. And, randomly, an ex-girlfriend dared me to do a play.
Ato Essandoh / Television Actor
Me School Play
Chemical
Dared
Engineer
Randomly
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Never would I have thought that I would meet Mick Jagger, much less be working on the same project.
Ato Essandoh / Television Actor
Jagger
Projects
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I think I'm a good actor, but to replicate tens of thousands of man hours in surgery is really hard.
Ato Essandoh / Television Actor
Replicate
Surgery
Good Actor
Tens
Tens Of Thousands
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In a law enforcement situation, black people are not always treated the same as white people would be.
Ato Essandoh / Television Actor
Enforcement
Law Enforcement
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You don't want to be a gimmick. You don't want to be a set piece, where people go, 'Hey, that's weird.'
Ato Essandoh / Television Actor
Hey
Gimmick
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Growing up near Scarsdale, I should have had at least one Jewish girlfriend. Maybe at some point it'll happen.
Ato Essandoh / Television Actor
At Least One
Near
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All of my friends on the street we're Jewish. I went to a lot of bar and bat mitzvahs. I even learned a little Hebrew.
Ato Essandoh / Television Actor
Hebrew
Bar
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My dad, when he was young, did Shakespeare in school, and my mom was a little bit of an artist, but everybody was pragmatic.
Ato Essandoh / Television Actor
Pragmatic
Shakespeare
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My parents are from Ghana. Until I was 17, I thought you had to go to college. I had no idea. I didn't know it was not an option.
Ato Essandoh / Television Actor
College
Ghana
Ideas
No Idea
Option
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If you're going to sign a contract, there are things you have to understand you might have to do. If you don't, then you walk away.
Ato Essandoh / Television Actor
Contract
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I grew up listening to blues and rock n' roll and other music, but, legitimately, the Stones is one of my favorite bands in the world.
Ato Essandoh / Television Actor
Blues
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I grew up listening to blues and rock 'n' roll and other music, but, legitimately, the Stones is one of my favorite bands in the world.
Ato Essandoh / Television Actor
Band
Listening
Rocks
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Macklemore gets a Grammy over Kendrick Lamar. I still can't get over that. But again, it's not Macklemore's fault. It's the way of the country.
Ato Essandoh / Television Actor
Grammy
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Everything musically, for me, there's two kinds of music. There's Prince and Jimi Hendrix and then Miles Davis and everything filters through that.
Ato Essandoh / Television Actor
Filters
Hendrix
Miles
Davis
Music Me Everything
Musically
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Every culture feels like their parents are the most stringent as far as, "We came to this country to work hard, we want you to be a doctor or a lawyer."
Ato Essandoh / Television Actor
Country
Doctors
Hard Work
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I have the softest beard in the world. As far as growing it, it doesn't itch, and it's so non-intrusive. But I am so sick of hair on my face and on my head.
Ato Essandoh / Television Actor
Beard
Face World I Am
Itch
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I love the notion of a dude sitting there with an untuned guitar tapping his foot and just singing his passion out; that's what got me into music in the first place.
Ato Essandoh / Television Actor
Notion
Tapping
Love Music Guitar
Dude
First Place
Foot
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I was in chemical engineering at Cornell University. My girlfriend at the time dared me to do a play. I knew there was something I wanted, not necessarily engineering.
Ato Essandoh / Television Actor
Engineering
Time Me Something
Chemical
Dared
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You look at how Barack Obama has had to conduct himself as president. It reminds me of Jackie Robinson, how he had to be very careful to reassure people that this was all right.
Ato Essandoh / Television Actor
Barack
Careful
Jackie
Me Look People
Obama
Barack Obama
Look Me People
Reassure
Reminds
Robinson
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Jason Bourne is supposed to be really sneaky and spry, but as soon as he walks by, everybody pulls out their cell phones and starts recording. That level of fame is wild to see.
Ato Essandoh / Television Actor
Bourne
Cells
Fame
Jason
Phones
Sneaky
Walks
Wild
Cell
Cell Phones
Soon
Supposed
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A really good impressionist, even if they don't look at all like the person they're impersonating, it's a weird thing where they start to look like that person. It's kind of odd.
Ato Essandoh / Television Actor
Odd
Impressionist
Weird Thing
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When 'Goodfellas' is on TNT, and they've taken out all the curse words and put Tide commercials in the middle of it, I'll still watch 'Goodfellas' because it's that great of a movie.
Ato Essandoh / Television Actor
Curse
Middle
Taken
Commercials
Tide
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The first time I ever heard the blues, my parents had a stack of records that they weren't using anymore. I found them when I was ten; I didn't know what it was. But I found Lightnin' Hopkins.
Ato Essandoh / Television Actor
Hopkins
Time Parents First Time
Blues
Stack
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I never heard about tefillin. I was unfamiliar with the deep history and ritual of being an Orthodox Jew. Before you get out of bed, you say a prayer, and then you get out of bed, say another one.
Ato Essandoh / Television Actor
Orthodox
Prayer
Ritual
Unfamiliar
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The first time I was onstage, I felt like the audience was breathing with me. I don't know if I was good or not; I just knew I was having a ball, and for the first time, I felt I belonged somewhere.
Ato Essandoh / Television Actor
Time Good Me
Belonged
Onstage
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Just the little bit that I've learned about Judaism, I didn't realize how, dare I say, intense that religion is as far as all of the things that you have to know and remember and the ritualism of it.
Ato Essandoh / Television Actor
Dare
Intense
Judaism
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There is more equity now in movies and TV, although I think its mostly because of changing demographics. It's not a moral proposition. It's good business. Shows about people of all colors are making money.
Ato Essandoh / Television Actor
Demographics
Equity
Making Money
Good Business Money
Business Good Money
Proposition
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It's not selling out, necessarily, to do something to gain some kind of notoriety that gives you the cache to do be able to go and do something else that you want. There's some dues that you just have to pay in life.
Ato Essandoh / Television Actor
Dues
Notoriety
Selling
Gain
Something Else
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I have the softest beard in the world. As far as growing it, it doesn't itch, and it's so non-intrusive. But, I am so sick of hair on my face and on my head. Because I'm not a really hairy guy, I'm not really used to it.
Ato Essandoh / Television Actor
Beard
Sick
Face World I Am
Hairy
Itch
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I'd never thought about acting as a job. I was an engineer; I was in science and technology. I loved movies and television growing up, but I'd never thought about it as, 'Oh, that guy Denzel Washington is employed as an actor.'
Ato Essandoh / Television Actor
Denzel
Employed
Science And Technology
Denzel Washington
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When I tell my friends, 'I'm in the 'Bourne' movie,' they're like, 'Congratulations! Wait... is Matt Damon coming back?' I go, 'Yeah.' And they're like, 'Yo! Matt Damon! Matty D!' Everyone pretends they know Matt Damon. It's exciting.
Ato Essandoh / Television Actor
Bourne
Congratulations
Matt
Matt Damon
Pretends
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Traveling, I've met Ghanaian people who have seen me in minor stuff, but they see the name Ato Essandoh, and they recognize it as a Ghanaian name. They come up to me and are always so excited. You don't think about it, but they really absorb American culture.
Ato Essandoh / Television Actor
American Culture
Excited
Culture Me People
Absorb
Always Culture Me
Met
Minor
Recognize
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When you're a guest star on a movie or a TV show, I always say it's like being invited to a family reunion, but it's not your family. So you don't belong - they're being nice to you, but you don't fit in completely; you don't know everybody's story. You don't have a history.
Ato Essandoh / Television Actor
Being Nice
Invited
Reunion
Family History Always
Belong
Guest
Guest Star
Tv Show
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When people say Jerry Lee Lewis invented rock n' roll, they forget Little Richard. People talk about Elvis Presley and forget he was singing black music. I don't blame Elvis. It was the music business figuring it could make more money from this music if it weren't presented from the original source.
Ato Essandoh / Television Actor
Black Music
Music Business
Business Money Music
Elvis
Figuring
Lee
Lewis
Presented
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You look at how Barack Obama has had to conduct himself as President. It reminds me of Jackie Robinson, how he had to be very careful to reassure people that this was all right. And you still have people trying to tear him down. They make up all sorts of lies, with the goal of making him seem illegitimate.
Ato Essandoh / Television Actor
Barack
Jackie
Me Look People
Barack Obama
Look Me People
Illegitimate
Make Up
Reassure
Reminds
Robinson
Tear
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If you get too deep into the history, what often happens to a lot of us actors is that we become stilted. We forget that we're reading about something that happened a hundred years ago. If we don't put the human emotion that would naturally be in there, we end up being stilted instead of being human beings.
Ato Essandoh / Television Actor
Being Human
Emotion
Naturally
Hundred Years
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'Copper' is my first period piece. It's funny because I've been doing a lot of episodes of 'Elementary' with Johnny Lee Miller and Lucy Liu; they keep bringing me back on the show, and so I go from being an outstanding black doctor to being a kind of hood, ex-car thief who went through rehab in 'Elementary.'
Ato Essandoh / Television Actor
Copper
Episodes
Hood
Lucy
Outstanding
Rehab
Bringing
Elementary
Johnny
Lee
Miller
Thief
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The Chinese Student Association at Cornell put together their own play. It was all Asian people in the cast except for me, because they wanted to do a couple of scenes about an interracial relationship. I was the only non-Asian person on stage; the entire audience was Asian apart from my 10 friends that showed up.
Ato Essandoh / Television Actor
Asian
Association
Chinese
Relationship Together Me
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White artists have made millions of dollars off music they stole from black artists. I don't blame all the white artists. I'm a huge Stevie Ray Vaughn fan, and he was always very gracious about where he learned his music. But a lot of the time, you'd think the white guys thought it up. Hey, hasn't anyone heard of Muddy Waters?
Ato Essandoh / Television Actor
Blame
Dollars
Gracious
Hey
Muddy
Time Music Always
Time Music Black
Stevie
Millions Of Dollars
Ray
Waters
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I see it in a lot of period pieces where everybody is standing and talking, in a stilted, archaic way, instead of being loose in the world. So, I try to do a little bit of research, just so that I can feel like I'm grounded, but then I try to bring as much of my human understanding that I can, under the filter of it being 1865.
Ato Essandoh / Television Actor
Grounded
Archaic
Filter
Loose
Period Pieces
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It's funny because as much as I've done Dr. Freeman, I guess because I shave right afterwards, people don't recognize me necessarily as Dr. Freeman, whereas a small role like 'Garden State' or 'Get Him to the Greek', which is the funniest one to me, they're like, 'Hey, you're that dude!' and you're like, 'Oh my God!' Which is awesome.
Ato Essandoh / Television Actor
Freeman
Garden
Hey
Funny God Me
Afterwards
Awesome
Dr
Dude
Funniest
Oh My God
Shave
Whereas
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