Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
I'm an artist at heart.
Art is art, and journalism is journalism.
You either get better, or you don't progress.
I grew up studying music. I went to conservatory.
Growing up, I never imagined I would be an actor.
I started acting almost on a whim to help my music career.
I started acting, almost on a whim to help my music career.
Don't be a victim; if you want to make movies, make movies.
Nothing will ever top 'The Wire.' It was historical. It was black cinema.
When you're in a high-stress situation, dynamics between people can change.
The African American community is so under-served in the entertainment industry.
I mean, you know actors, we always want to do something else, something different.
If you're going to come at me, come at me respectfully, and I will respond respectfully.
Notes are tricky in an audition, because I find, more often than not, my instinct is right.
Most of the characters I'd played were so different from me, so far from me that I had to transform.
I can only speak as an American, but most journalism here isn't doing its job any more. It's about selling stuff.
'Pigeonholed' isn't the right word, because I feel like I've had a very wide range of characters that I've been allowed to play.
In drama school, my greatest strength was my range. So my early career was like that: I played all kinds of different characters.
Sometimes you have to say, "No. This is my space." If you're going to come at me, come at me respectfully, and I will respond respectfully.
Because of the way tech is changing, and becoming cheaper and user-friendly, it's becoming easier to make films cheaply, maintaining quality.
'The Wire' really drew on a lot of real-life situations and real-life organizations - it created fiction to make a social statement about reality.
It's funny, because in drama school, my greatest strength was my range. So my early career was like that: I played all kinds of different characters.
I graduated in '94 from Yale and New York Undercover was my first gig on TV. I was really all over the place with roles, which is what I wanted to do.
I started to realize, a lot of times if you go into your memory, your sense memory, you know more than you think you do, from having watched and listened.
From the time I became an actor my whole approach was to try to do as many different things as possible. It never occurred to me that I might be typecast.
You don't see a lot of black rock stars. The music industry tends to be segregated stylistically. It's hard for a black artist to cross over to rock music.
When I went to drama school, I knew I was at least as talented as other students, but because I was a black man and I wasn't pretty, I knew I would have to work my butt off to be the best that I would be, and to be noticed.
As I got further into my career, as a character of color, if I was going to have the types of opportunities I felt I deserved, and continue to have them, I was going to have to start creating those opportunities for myself.
I’m interested not just in projects that I’ll be starring in, but producing film and TV that’s really quality and great for adults; and when I say great for adults, it doesn’t mean without humor, because I’m also interested in doing comedy.
I'm interested not just in projects that I'll be starring in, but producing film and TV that's really quality and great for adults; and when I say 'great for adults,' it doesn't mean without humor, because I'm also interested in doing comedy.
When I was working on The Wire with the other actors, scene after scene after scene, I felt like we were singing together. We were dancing together. I'm like, "This is the best ensemble I've ever worked with. I'm working with these cats? Holy mackerel, this is heaven."
It's funny, 90 percent of what I've done has been television, and I never really wanted to do it that much. I was really interested in film and theater. What's ironic is that when I started doing television, I did a bunch of amazing shows all in a row, starting with The Corner.
A very odd thing happened to my career when I got The Wire. My career was pretty much a steady climb; I didn't really flatline much. When I did The Wire, that's when I thought all the doors would open, but that's when things flatlined. I had a really hard time just getting seen for film, which was the next step.
I was coming from a theater background. I had an obsession with classic film and cool, interesting, intelligent television. I didn't really understand the way the mainstream television industry worked. I just thought "The wire is so good that it's going to be a huge hit, and we'll get awards up the yin-yang forever." That's what I thought!
I did an Off-Broadway show that was a comedy written by Ann Meara. We were like a family, and we did that show for a year. On Oz, I did feel like the cast members were friends and there was a lot of bonding. That said, there was a lot of testosterone. Once again, it was full of really intense theater actors with this writing that was really intricate and subtle.
That's what David Caruso said to me. We were talking about the whole Emmy thing, and he said that one of the things about awards in this town is that a lot is about the drama - like the drama of the performance. And he said "Your show, The Wire, looks so real, it almost looks like a documentary. And people who aren't artists - a lot of people who vote for this stuff - don't get it."
What's interesting is, most of the people who are fans of the The Wire who black people or cops... most of the people in the industry are the crew: writers, actors and directors. And so they understand what it is that we do, so they think, "Wow, what a incredible group of amazing actors." It's funny, I think there are a couple of reasons why we have never gotten any nomination for anything except for writing.
I feel like my public life isn't necessarily my own. I'm starting to get used to how to maneuver and operate in New York in a way that I don't get stopped all the time. I just pretty much say "Thank you." But one of the things is to try to keep moving. Not to stop too long, because people try to get into a conversation with you all the time. The hardest thing is on the subway, or when people try to chase you down.
Notes are tricky in an audition, because I find, more often than not, my instinct is right. If they have a preconceived notion about the role and it goes against my instinct, unless it makes sense to me, it often throws off what I'm trying to do. Though sometimes they have an insight that I don't because they've been living with the script. I don't have one feeling or another about notes, but it is always a little bit of a red alert when I get one in an audition.