Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
Martin Luther King was a voice to the voiceless, and he did that tirelessly, and his faith was the engine to that. But he was just a human being, at the end of the day.
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.
I've been an actor for 14 years now and a lot of that time was spent in theatre and television. Then I moved to L.A. to try and build upon that and it's starting to pay off!
I have a bee in my bonnet as to how few black historical figures one sees on film; incredible stories, stories from which we are living the legacy and which just don't get made.
When I am playing a role far away from me with an accent that is not mine I always employ a dialect coach. I am almost always playing someone that has an accent that is not mine.
One of the things I have an allergic reaction to playing, especially as a black actor, is the mandatory kind of best friend/cop/detective type. You will never see me in that movie.
I am a father, I am very aware of the things that I'm putting out in the world knowing that one day my children will watch the work that I've done. I want to be able to stand by it.
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.
I know that I am not owed the right to make movies. I know God has given me this privileged position, and I have to work dog-hard as an actor to make the films the best they can be.
You really want to keep ringing the changes - you hope that your work and your choices make people excited about where you're going next and that that might be somewhere unexpected.
I have been in films before where people have been in a rush to label them as a Black film or even as a history lesson. These are ways to make the film feel niche and not for everyone.
I'm very aware of how much movies, literature and art affect culture. They are a reflection of the world around us and they are also a means by which we engage with the world around us.
I truly believe that one of the things that has been lacking in the USA is a spirit of repentance about the injustices of slavery and the injustices of segregation and racism generally.
As artists, our primary function is not to be educators - but we are at a time in history, where for us, our history needs to give context for stories that we hope to tell down the road.
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.
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.
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 one of a generation brought up on television whose acting is more 'naturalistic', whereas with some of the older generation it's more heightened. But I think there's room for both styles.
Female directors, directors of color are a big thing for me, which are both important voices and potent voices that need to be heard. That's how I want to engage myself as an actor going forward.
I think until Britain acknowledges just how much of a presence black people had here before the Sixties, then there are certain stories that are not going to be inclusive of what I have to offer.
I know for a fact the reason I'm an actor is because one, two, maybe three people when I was younger saw something that I did, in youth theater or some small play somewhere, and said, "You're good."
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.
The fact that I was black and desirous to do my work, the other kids would call me a coconut, as if I were somehow attempting to be white. The bullying was real: I'd get punched, spat at, terrible things.
I think that having a black president in America has been a seismic shift, in terms of what has been going on racially in America. I think that America is now engaging with how we have come to this point.
What we usually do to great men and women is relegate them to homogenised heroism. Their words and actions become soundbites and images in a way that gives us an excuse not to act bravely in our own lives.
I think that any channel, whether it's Fox, CNN, or whatever, if they were truly giving a 360-view of what's going on, we would be better equipped to not slap judgments on people we really don't understand.
I never, ever do a film and just kind of move on. I think of them as children of mine, and you don't give birth to a baby and just leave it on someone else's doorstep. You see it all the way through college.
I think that having a black president in this country has been a seismic shift, in terms of what has been going on racially in America. I think that America is now engaging with how we have come to this point.
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.
At the end of the day, everyone knows what it is to be loved and to aspire to love someone, to want to be loved, the loss of love, or having their love be opposed, whether it is family, friends or politically.
I'm very aware that people find my wife and I's marriage disagreeable. But all I have to do is look at my four kids, and the love I have in my heart for my wife after 18 years of marriage, and the ugliness does fade.
Sunday at 11 o'clock is the most segregated hour in America. You have black churches; you have white churches; you have Hispanic churches. It's not really reflective of the world we live in, by and large, in America.
Hollywood has done some of these films, and some of them are ginormous biblical movies, but you can tell the people making these are not invested in the truth of what those stories are biblically. It shows in the work.
Not every film I do is going to be like 'Selma,' but every film I do can be edifying, can be something that points toward I believe to be true. I'm not one to shy away from darkness in movies as long as there is light.
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.
'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.
In what I do for a living, trust and confidence are key. Inevitably, you can't make brave choices and do your best work, if you don't have those, because it's such a subjective art form, and you don't have eyes on yourself.
There are many, many communities, many ethnic minorities, many civilizations that have been brutalised by others and you have to move on. You cannot perpetually stay in that place of blame, otherwise it's just a downward spiral.
As you know, Sunday at 11 o'clock is the most segregated hour in America. You have black churches; you have white churches; you have Hispanic churches. It's not really reflective of the world we live in, by and large, in America.
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 do think opportunity breeds bravery. It's such a competitive profession, no one owes you anything, talent in itself is not enough. I went to drama school with so many great actors who are not doing it anymore and it's circumstantial.
I find that male directors are more interested in what the film looks like as opposed to what the film is about emotionally. My job is not to make the film look pretty, and I don't feel drawn to making myself look pretty within the film.
The wonderful situation that I find myself in now, is that choosing the roles I want is more of a reality for me. As a result, I take it very seriously, because I find this opportunity in film to be a very powerful and influential medium.
I've never, ever taken a role for money purposes or for some bizarre notion of what may be the kind of career move that would open things up for me. If I don't believe in it, I can't do it because I won't be good in it if I don't believe in it.
Every time I go to Africa, I feel like I hit true north. There is a depth of feeling that I have for the continent, in the richness of the people, the suffering , but also the transcendent joy that is there - it's like nowhere else on the planet.
Dr. Martin Luther King was never a man to say 'I've got this' as the leader of the movement. He wasn't always sure that his decisions were correct, because he knew every decision he made was putting lives at risk, including his and his family's lives.
I believe the path to a long career is to keep the audience guessing. Daniel Day Lewis is my absolute hero from that point of view. I literally will pay to see anything he does because I know it's going to be something different than I have already seen.
I had always known that I couldn't play Dr. King purely out of my own ability as an actor. When you look at him give those speeches, you can tell that he is taken up by something other than himself. He is flowing with an anointing that is directly from God.
I grew up watching period dramas, as we all did in the 1980s and '90s - endless adaptations of Jane Austen and Charles Dickens - and I loved them. But I never saw anyone like me in them, so I decided to find a story to erode the excuses for me not doing one.
What I try to do with my career as an actor is what I've learned in the theater: I am rigorous with myself as to whether I'm telling the truth, and I try to surround myself with filmmakers and content creators who are also interested in the pursuit of the truth.