Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
Love is sacrifice.
I love tennis, love it!
I hear God as an audible voice.
I don't have a tailor, but I do love clothes.
I like to think of myself as a physical actor.
Excellence is the best weapon against prejudice.
Hate cannot overcome hate; only love can do that.
I was sometimes called 'coconut' when I was at school.
Find the audience, be excellent, and you will be fine.
One of the things the BBC does better than anyone is period drama.
For me, I actively look for projects that showcase people of color.
I will, till the day I die, be an advocate for the d-word: diversity.
I try as much as possible not to utter a single line that I don't believe in.
My ambition is to keep the audience guessing... that is my path to a long career.
To break down prejudice is to get to a place of understanding, that can erode the ignorance.
Don't send me your script if you want me to play the black best friend; I just won't do that.
Whether we like to admit it or not, as artists, we do project our own worldview on to what we do.
We've had so many faith-based movies that I think are sub-par; I almost want a new phrase for them.
Considering that I'm British and I talk the way I do, I love it when a director takes a chance on me.
We can't afford to deny our past in a bid to be empowered. But what we can do is contextualize the past.
The kinds of stories I want to be a part of telling are about delving into what it is to be a human being.
You can’t have people curating culture in this way when we need to see things in order to reform from them.
Africa is trying to find its way back to a sense of itself, when much of that was lost through colonization.
I consider myself a human being, a Christian, a father, a husband, so many things, before being a black person.
I turn down a lot of movies because sometimes they glamorize violence or the darker side of sex or criminality.
I've just seen that there is a really amazing perspective that we're missing by not having more women directing.
I feel television is in a fantastically rich vein of what it's presenting both by opportunity to actors and to audiences.
There's a nimble quality to the way a television actor can work. When that muscle gets strong it's a very valuable thing.
I truly believe in cinema's potential for cultural impact. I have a clear idea what I want to do - to enrich people's lives.
People have compact to go beyond our own culture and upbringing to a degree that I think we don't acknowledge enough really.
I truly believe that we cannot come to a place of reconciliation until there is individual repentance and corporate repentance.
Considering how pervasive interracial marriage is, certainly in American society, it is rare we get to see it depicted on film.
A film centered around the Second World War with a predominantly white cast would not have the pressure on it that 'Red Tails' has.
I do think how two people dance with each other is indicative of how they feel about each other. It can tell a lot more than a verbal scene.
People always ask me, 'Why so many historical dramas?' Because those are the best roles I get to play, and I get to play heroes in those roles.
The perception of Africa, whether in the U.S. or in Europe, is of a continent that needs help, and cannot pull itself up. That is just not true.
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 think the notion that we are different just because of skin color, and that we should be kept apart or kept from interbreeding, is very hurtful.
People in the industry thought it was laughable that I should be going up for things that didn't clearly state what race the part was intended for.
You're always looking for roles and other creatives who are going to be challenging to you, because you're always a better actor after the experience.
You can't afford for there to be gaps in your pool of knowledge when it comes to a character; otherwise, what ends up onscreen is generalized and unspecific.
There are a lot of challenges I undeniably have faced as a black person both in the U.K. and in the U.S. that contrived to make me feel lesser than what I am.
If you feel like the beginning of your history is rooted in slavery, that really, I think, messes with your sense of self, your self-esteem, and your self-worth.
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.
If you merely focus on what we already know, then it's not revelatory. You may as well just go and watch a documentary or a few videos on Youtube, and you're good.
One of the occupational hazards of being an actor, the reason why so many actors are insecure, is that the only way we know we're good is when other people tell us.
I know that there is still a lot of bitterness and anger, and arguably justifiably so, when you think about how brutal slavery was and what its brutal legacy still is.
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.
We're all, whether we like it or not, gonna have to deal with bereavement at some point in our lives, and it's something I think, as a society, maybe we shy away from.
Because I was aspirational, I did my work, I was respectful to my teachers, I experienced a lot of bullying from the black kids. My friends were largely white or Asian.