Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
I actually had the opportunity to stand at the lectern in the Supreme Court and face the justices, which was really a powerful thing for me.
People think my name is Morpheus. Many times, people will say to me, 'Morpheus!' and I will complete the sentence by saying, 'is not my name!'
'Apocalypse Now' was my craziest experience ever. I was 14 years old, and I'd lied about my age to get the role. I haven't had another film top it.
I wouldn't say that going into a weekly television series is actually stepping away from anything. It's another medium in which to work as an actor.
My production company, what we are trying to do is I'm trying to create content that speaks to me, and it's not one color. It's not one size fits all.
It's important for a lot of young black males to value swagger over intelligence. Swagger is important, but intelligence must come before the swagger.
When I think of Othello, I think of a poet-warrior. Let me say that again - a romantic warrior. And I think I have those qualities in common with him.
When I first read 'Boyz,' I cried. It could have been about some kids in Warsaw, Poland. I knew it was good, but I had no idea what it would do to me.
Playing solo with an audience for an hour and 30 minutes without a break means I have to, as the jazz cats say, get into the shed and work on my chops.
We don't really see a lot of war movies about the people that are left behind, dealing with the deaths of those who serve and the sacrifices they make.
Some people think of me as an actor and some as a movie star, so I sort of guess that makes me both. I love making movies, and I love playing on the stage.
I work with my instincts. I don't have a process that I learned in an acting class whereby I break a script down or whereby I do a certain kind of research.
I have taken care of my gift, and because I've taken care of my gift, I feel like I've been continually and constantly blessed to get to do wonderful things.
On a motorcycle, you can't really think about more than where you are. There's a freedom that comes with that - from stress, worry, sweating the small stuff.
The commercial I did for Kia was hilarious and unexpected, so that, I think, is also another way of signaling to the audience that there's more to me than Morpheus.
We know that passion, prejudice, party, and even good-will, tempt many who preserve a fair character with the world to deviate from truth in the laxity of conversation.
It's funny, a lot of people think I take myself seriously because I come off so serious sometimes. But it's not that I take myself seriously, I take what I do seriously.
Things have become considerably better for men of colour since I was born. But I'd say that we'll be really getting somewhere when things get better for women of colour.
Do mainstream crowds want to watch a movie about good things happening in black neighborhoods? Do black audiences want to see a little girl doing something in a white world?
You can't go looking for another one of those franchises. You only ever get one of those. You get 'Stars Wars'; you get 'Indiana Jones' or get 'The Matrix.' I've had my franchise.
What I continue to learn as a parent is to be mindful of the fact that I am responsible for being the parent that my children need me to be and not necessarily the parent I want to be.
I certainly believe that being in contact with ones spirit and nurturing ones spirit is as important as nurturing ones body and mind. We are three dimensional beings: body, mind, spirit.
I've been around long enough now and have learned to be flexible enough to know that every movie isn't going to be 'Apocalypse Now,' and every director doesn't have to be Stanley Kubrick.
Anytime we're talking about Thurgood Marshall, that's a good thing, I think, because it gives us an opportunity to go back, look at the history, and recognize what his contributions were.
As a man of colour, I've spent my life asking people to see me for who I am. With Obama in the White House, it feels like people have finally caught up to where I've been most of my life.
When you're on screen with Mads, there's some real fireworks because your character is his intellectual equal. In a way, maybe your character has an instinct as to who this man really is.
I certainly believe that being in contact with one's spirit and nurturing one's spirit is as important as nurturing one's body and mind. We are three dimensional beings: body, mind, spirit.
If you're playing a real person, then you want to do a certain amount of research, but that's only going to be so useful to you. Each role requires a different kind of approach to get ready.
After 'Othello,' it was, like, 'I can stop acting. I have played one of the great characters in the English language. I feel I have played him well and honorably. I have nothing to prove anymore.'
It's a huge blessing to know you've done something that has affected people the way 'The Matrix' has. It's like, there's 'Star Wars,' and then there's 'The Matrix.' It's cool to be a part of that.
Obviously, after 'The Matrix,' it was a case of, 'OK, I did that. What's next?' I mean, it's always like that, but more so this time. How do I change it up? How do I keep it interesting for myself?
I have a man cave somewhere in California - a totally undisclosed location where manly things occur. There are motorcycles, there are secret doors and passageways. Women are welcome, but they must knock.
I see that I have, as part of my stock in trade, a very regal personality and carriage. I see that I have a kind of strength, a kind of command, and a kind of power that one would associated with a monarch.
There's a bunch of plays that I never got to do because I was either too young or too old for the parts, like 'Slow Dance on the Killing Ground' and 'Dutchman.' For 'American Buffalo,' I was the wrong color.
When I was ten, I did a play at the Henry Street Settlement Playhouse, Charles Fuller's first play. He went on to write 'A Soldier's Story,' among other things. I realized, 'Oh, I can be anything doing this.'
If you asked someone who was a Maori about how they felt about how they were treated in Australia or New Zealand, you'll get an answer. They'll have something to tell you. And you might not like what you hear.
Hiding a talent is not exclusive to any one particular group of people: young, old, black, white, Latin. It doesn't matter. It's universal. The idea that you have a gift or talent is always kind of threatening.
Acting and philanthropy are braided together. I've tried to seek out things that speak not just specifically to the community that created me, but that speak in a way that's universal and all of humanity celebrates.
'The Fugitive Kind,' 'Rope,' 'Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?' - I watched all these as a way of reminding myself that you can do a movie based on a play. You can do a movie that stays in one place for a long stretch.
I think of myself as being a relatively intelligent man who is open to a lot of different things and I think that questioning our purpose in life and the meaning of existence is something that we all go through at some point.
I believe in my children. I believe in human beings. I believe in the goodness that is in human beings. I believe in many, many things that I cannot prove. I believe that there's the world of the seen and the world of the unseen.
I came up around people who took acting seriously, who cared about acting, cared about the theater and, in the '70s, made movies that said something that mattered. I came up with those people, and I was a kid. Their ethos and credo became mine.
I play characters. I don't think I really have a persona per se. I don't play the same guy every time. I show up, you don't know what I'm gonna do. I like it that way. I've intentionally tried to do it that way. I think that's what's interesting.
Doing 'CSI: N.Y.' is not 'CSI.' Doing 'CSI: Miami' is not 'CSI: N.Y.,' it's 'CSI: Miami.' It has a very, very specific tone. It has a very specific look. It has a specific way in which they tell their stories that's different from 'CSI: N.Y.' and 'CSI.'
I carry a lot of feminine energy as well as masculine energy, and that's the hit that people are getting. That vulnerable thing is not what we assume with black males. You get it, and then they cease to become scary. They become human. You cease to have a bogeyman.
My company, Cinema Gypsy, produced a podcast, 'Bronzeville,' in conjunction with Larenz Tate and his brothers that we're developing into a television show. It deals with a very tight-knit African-American community in Chicago in 1947 and people who run a numbers wheel.
I love the opportunity to use my full range, and so playing in the comedy 'Black-ish' gives me the opportunity to show my lighter side, and playing in this beautiful, elegant horror story of 'Hannibal,' I get to use my darker and more cerebral side. It's really wonderful.
I don't think Othello is a jealous man - he is a man who has been deceived by another person, just as everybody in the play is deceived by that person... The playwright uses the word 'jealousy' over and over and over again, but I don't think it has anything to do with being jealous.
I don't necessarily go out and try to do something that's going to be just something that will please the audience. I'm not interested in doing something where I get the most people to come see the movie at the same time and they get the biggest explosion. I'm not interested in that.
I was in a movie with Marlon Brando. Now, I didn't have any scenes with Marlon Brando, but I had scenes with Martin Sheen and was around Dennis Hopper, who was a child actor in the studio system and was enamored of James Dean, as was Martin, and they were all sort of disciples of Brando.