"Acting, it's not my life, my children and my family, that's life. I'll get up every morning, God willing, for that."
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Denzel Washington quotes (page 7 of 12)
234 quotes — follow a thought to its full quote page.
"I was first introduced to August Wilson in the 80s when Charles Dutton did Ma Rainey and James Earl Jones and Courtney Vance did Fences. I've long considered August Wilson to be one of the five greatest playwrights in American history."
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"Everybody has a job to do. There are people in Iraq on both sides of this war who do what they do for religious reasons, and they feel with God on their side. Some people are good at annihilating people. Maybe that's their gift."
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"I had the kid [on "Fences" ] who understudied me so I could stand back and think about shots so he had to learn the blocking and everything. I'd come in early sometimes, and they 'd be in there rehearsing and working on their stuff. I didn't want them to feel like, "Oh these are people who can't be touched." We're all working actors; we're all trying to get better."
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"I had a lot of success from the start. I never really was tested for long periods of time. I got my first professional job while I was a senior in college. I signed with the William Morris Agency before I graduated."
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"It's simple: You get a part. You play a part. You play it well. You do your work and you go home. And what is wonderful about movies is that once they're done, they belong to the people. Once you make it, it's what they see. That's where my head is at."
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"The last few years I've been saying I was ready to quit. It wasn't that interesting to me. Now that I'm directing, it's all new again."
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"[Rose from "Fences"] couldn't just jump out there. Not just because of economic reasons but because how she was looked at in society at the time. There were a lot of factors that made you stay I guess."
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"Raising the standard of the work, not complaining about somebody not voting."
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"Meryl and Katharine Hepburn are probably the two greatest actresses of this and the last century."
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"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."
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"Dakota Fanning is a child, but she is a wonderful actor. I don't know what a child actor is. She's an actor who's a child."
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"You have to grab moments when they happen. I like to improvise and ad lib."
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"So the desire you have, that itch that you have to be whatever it is you want to be ... that itch, that desire for good is God’s proof to you sent already to indicate that it’s yours. You already have it. Claim it."
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"You don't pick black actors or black directors because they are black. You pick them because they are good. If you lend somebody 50 million dollars you want you're money back. You don't care if they are oppressed. You just want you're money back."
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"Bad guys need love too."
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"I honestly believe, and I've said it many times, that the universal stems from the specific and I can't walk around with a performance and ask everyone how they feel about it, but if noble is an opinion that people have I'll accept that. I've been asked many times why I don't play bad guys, or heavies, and I would do it, absolutely, in a second, just haven't been offered any so... if anybody has a script out there tonight I'm more than willing."
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"The only reason I'm acting in films I direct is to get the money to make them, quite frankly, it's not what I'm interested in doing."
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"I asked my mother I said, "You divorced my dad, how did you decide? She said, "I decided twelve years before he knew it." I was like wow; I'm learning something new every day."
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"As an actor, you're a color of paint on someone else's palette. But as a director, it's your canvas and you make the painting you want to make."
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