Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
As soon as I came to L.A., things immediately shifted for me. I was now actually here with the people who were making the decisions; I wasn't out in New York sending in tapes to L.A.
There's nothing more stressful than your stomach growling. But interestingly enough, some of my best writing came when I was poor and hungry - living off water and oatmeal, mind clear.
I'm the kind of guy who comes home and checks scores for everything. I'm a sports fan in general, so I pretty much keep up with who's ahead in a division and everything that's going on.
I try to look at every role the same way, regardless of whether the character is real or the character is a fantasy. I always start from myself, because you have to know yourself first.
I'm an artist. Artists don't need permission to work. Regardless of whether I'm acting or not, I write. I write when I'm tired in fact, because I believe your most pure thoughts surface.
I would go through these cycles of being really, really focused on work, and not being around anyone, to being around everyone. And that could be distracting. It was nothing or everything.
Even after I became involved in theater and involved in TV and film, I had this sort of idea that Hollywood was off limits. There was something about L.A., the mystique of it and fear of it.
When you make movies, it's such an important period of time, when you look back at each one of them. You want to be able to say that you did something that was a challenge and that changed you.
The thing I love about Marvel in general is that they deal with people. They deal with the human being first: Who is inside the suit? Who is the person that obtained this power or this ability?
Girls like dudes that are overweight. I know too many women who say, "I like you now that you've got a little thicker," and I don't really know any woman that says, "I like you now that you've got bald."
In television you don't have a lot of time to spend with the role or the script. Typically you get a script a week prior to shooting. Sometimes it's even less time, not enough time to dream about the role.
I know that baseball players have certain rituals or habits that they develop, because sometimes it becomes somewhat superstitious if they get on a streak and want to do the same thing over and over again.
Every year, Hollywood is looking for that new, white leading man and new white starlet that audiences fall in love with. But they're not looking for the next Denzel Washington, Will Smith or Sidney Poitier.
When they call you and say, 'So you want to play 'Black Panther?'' if you know what 'Black Panther' is, there's no way in the world you're going to say no because there's a lot of opportunity for magic to happen.
You might have one thing in your head, but the things you're doing don't really lead down the right road, necessarily. When you're young, you don't want to hear that. You think you can do everything, be all things.
I said yes too much. I said yes to certain projects that weren't for me. It was somebody else's vision and somebody else's dream and somebody else's artistic endeavor, but it didn't necessarily fit in my grand scheme.
Baseball players need strength but also the ability to make fast-paced, explosive movements, so their training is all about strengthening the tendons around the bone and the joint so you don't tear the muscles from the bones.
I was raised in a sort of village. I have a huge family, and I think there is strength in that. It helped me to deal with some of the complications of living in the South because I always felt like I belonged, no matter what.
In TV, you're basically shooting an episode in 10 to 14 days; 14 days is a luxury situation. And in film, you have anywhere from a month to three months, or it can be even longer than that, depending on what the production is.
I remember my first agent telling me - because they found me as an actor, but I was probably more interested in writing and maybe directing - they were like, 'Well, you can't do both things.' And I was like, 'I'm gonna show you.'
I would love to have an ocean of love right now. That said, the number-one rule of acting is, 'Do not seek approval from the audience.' People don't realize that. You can't do stuff to get applause. You have to live in the truth.
I played Little League baseball, but I also played basketball. Basketball was my primary sport. When you play basketball seriously, a lot of times, through the summer season, you continue playing. So that replaced me playing baseball.
I started out as a writer and a director. I started acting because I wanted to know how to relate to the actors. When people ask me what I do, I don't really say that I'm an actor, because actors often wait for someone to give them roles.
I'm not one of those guys who walks around with a flip phone who doesn't want to be connected. There are times when I'm tech-friendly, and there are times when I personally do want to shut everything off because I'm more creative when I shut off.
I have my own personal masticating juicer at home. I sort of picked it up from friends a few years ago, and it just gives me more energy. Mostly green juice. Spinach, celery, kale, green apples, lemon, sometimes ginger - you know, like, nasty, euuugghhhh!
There's the phrase of 'making America great again,' but how did we make America great? Who did it? It was Thurgood Marshall who did it. It was Thurgood Marshall who made America live up to its constitution, to its dream. He pushed the envelope to make sure that we were equal.
I like ambiguity because you may be the villain in someone else's story and the hero in your own, and I think very often, African-American characters are either one thing or the other. You shouldn't have to be perfectly good or perfectly bad. You don't even have to be magical.
Once you start getting big roles as an actor, everything pays. So what are you making decisions on? It's about the director or the script or whatever. But before you reach that point, you're taking jobs with, say, a theater company, in spite of the fact that it's not paying your bills.
I love all types of music. Jazz, classical, blues, rock, hip-hop. I often write scripts to instrumentals like a hip-hop artist. Music inspires me to write. It's either music playing or completely silent. Sometimes distant sound fuels you. In New York there's always a buzzing beneath you.
I'm from Anderson, S.C., but I grew up in the South. So I know what it is to ride to school and have Confederate flags flying from trucks in front of me and behind me, to see a parking lot full of people with Confederate flags and know what that means. I've been stopped by police for no reason.
People of African descent, most of us grew up accepting and loving Spider-Man. I still love Spider-Man. I still love the Incredible Hulk. I still have those characters that were white role models, superheroes, heroes - whatever you want to call it. You basically had no choice but to accept those.
Some people would view Jackie Robinson as a very safe African-American, a docile figure who had a tendency to try to get along with everyone, and when you look at his history, you learn that he has this fire that allows him to take this punishment but also figure out savvy ways of giving it back.
When I got out of school, I didn't really understand the differences in the different aspects of the business. For example, doing a play - where does that take you versus, you know, concentrating on independent films? You might have one thing in your head, but the things you're doing don't really lead down the right road, necessarily.
Baseball players need strength but also the ability to make fast-paced, explosive movements, so their training is all about strengthening the tendons around the bone and the joint so you don't tear the muscles from the bones. And so the muscles will have endurance and stability. And flexibility, which helps you throw the ball harder or have the snap to hit a ball. Or to take off quickly to steal a base.