One failed experiment is one step closer to Success.
I’m not afraid to upset people. But I am not as upset because I understand what I’m up against.
That’s what I tell young actors. “You don’t have to compromise. Go do some theater and wait for an appropriate role.”
If you take the time and put in the effort to write your own material and absolutely refuse to be denied the right to make your film it is difficult whatever colour you are.
I think that if there can be considered racism it’s to do with the lack of opportunities for writers and producers and the people behind the camera.
When people say “What do you want people to get from this movie?” I say, “Well, it depends on what they bring to it.” I don’t try to decide what people should get from it or why. I don’t do a part for those kinds of reasons.
Acting is like music and you improvise. It’s like jazz, there’s no rhyme or reason to it. It’s not a plan. You practice to music and you just play it.
As an actor in the theater you’re taught that you never play a bad guy. You have to love who you are. You can’t say, “Oh, I’m a bad guy.” How do you play that?
When you make a movie it’s always interesting, because you end up in places you never would as a normal visitor or tourist.
Denzel Washington: I like the collaboration, I like seeing people do well, so I really plan to direct the rest of my days.
I think we’re fascinated by gangsters and that whole lifestyle and crossing the line. We get sort of stuck in our normal lives, if you will, and you want to be bigger than life and I think people somehow live through these sorts of characters.
I don’t look back, no. Maybe when I’m older; people say, ‘What’s your favorite film?’ I say, ‘My next one.’ I’m not interested in sitting around; I just don’t, never have.
I love research and being educated. It’s a great job being able to step into all kinds of professions and into other people’s shoes.
Sometimes when you’re the good guy, you’re sort of trapped. “Oh, he can’t say that.” And even when you’re playing a real person like a Steven Biko, you’re sort of stuck within those confines. So yeah, bad guys do have more fun.
I always think it’s not what we know that’s terrifying; it’s what we don’t know. That’s sort of pervasive with everything in life.
I always say the time to worry about flying is when you’re on the ground. If you don’t trust the captain, don’t go.
I’m a logic monster, if things don’t make sense I gotta make sense of them.
There are films that I don’t like, and then someone will come up to me and say it’s their favorite movie. The movies belong to the people. You make them and you put them out. For me, I love the process of making films. For me, my favorite film is always my next one.
Acting, it’s not my life, my children and my family, that’s life. I’ll get up every morning, God willing, for that.
I’m a parent. I think we’re responsible for the problems that young people have. I believe that. I don’t blame them for any of it. I blame us for what we haven’t done as mothers and fathers, not sticking together as a unit.