Quote collection
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"I didn't want to audition the kids so much; I just wanted to talk to them because I like seeing how they are because their mothers usually mess them up with practice. So, I'd rather talk to them and see how they respond. I just throw things at them and see how they can hit the ball back, and Saniyya Sidney was good."
"I'm a positive person, so I don't get bogged down with it. If you're expecting that, if you wall in that, if you practice that, then you'll attract what you fear."
"People have said to me for a long time, "Man you're funny." I say, "Well, I'm quick," but being funny on purpose, take after take - that's why I said for me it was new territory, and so by improvising something might come out that might be good. And it's film, so they can cut it if it isn't."
"We just had to stay out-of-the-way [in Fences]. [August Wilson] already wrote a masterpiece. And you really don't know how it's going to work until you get it in front of an audience."
"That's what I tell young actors. "You don't have to compromise. Go do some theater and wait for an appropriate role.""
"[Movie "Fences"] is more than holds up today. We have had a tremendous response at the screenings."
"There's things that I can do as an actor that I couldn't do in any other form of life and I've got a strange personality. But film requires strange people, so I've got a nice comfy home."
"It just happened that we did [Fences] seven years ago on Broadway. Scott Rudin brought me August Wilson's original screenplay for it, and I realized I hadn't read the play. So I read it. Then I realized that Troy (my character) was 53 - and I was 55 at the time. I realized I better hurry up! I might be too old!"
"I read a ton of scripts. I read a lot of scripts, and you read one, and first of all, you felt like you read it in 14 minutes, because you're turning the pages so fast you can't wait to see what's going to happen."
"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."
"I get nervous when a picture goes beyond two hours."
"In Los Angeles, everyone is a star."
"My mother used to tell me: "You gotta smile more. Because if you don't smile, the way you look at people, they'll think you're mad at them.""
"You never know how you're going to affect people."
"The strongest, toughest men all have compassion. They're not heartless and cold. You have to be man enough to have compassion - to care about people and about your children" (217) - John Singleton "Oh Man, I've Become My Father"
"Say what you really want to say."
"I'm a logic monster, if things don't make sense I gotta make sense of them."
"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."
"I still have my unemployment books and I remember when I worked for the sanitation department and the post office."
"I've just directed a film called The Great Debaters, which is inspired by a true story about a young college debating team in the thirties and two of those people are still alive and we put them on tape on the film and I'm sure that will be added to the DVD, and to get the opportunity to do that is very cool."