You never see girls running after engineers.
The choices that we make through our lives, the people who intersect us on our path kind of change what our fated destiny is. So some of us are lucky enough for the choices that we make to keep us on our path.
I got a job as soon as I graduated from school. I always wanted to bartend because I love listening to people and how awful their lives are.
So I feel like success is opportunity plus preparation, so work begets work, and as long as you're prepared it's going to continue to come your way.
If you want to buy a good movie, you'll buy a good movie. If you don't want to buy a good movie, you'll buy a 'Twilight' movie.
I'm a firm believer in people who love what they do.
Most of the time when you see a movie, the best character in the movie is not "the guy," it's the guy next to the guy.
I just don't understand how people can get so caught up in having their picture taken.
Every time I get mad, I grab my hammer and make a bookshelf or something.
I'm a firm believe that a man looks his best in a suit and I feel like in the late 40's people just dressed up to do everything.
There are a lot of limitations and stigmas that are placed on young actors, specifically young black actors.
If everyone invested in the neighborhood they lived in, the United States would be a magical place.
I was raised with a sense of entrepreneurship - my father owned a roofing business, and I grew up with the idea that you never want someone telling you what you can and cannot do.
I love what I do. If I have the opportunity to do what I do with people I admire, it's 10 times better.
Acting is the only medium were people think they can just stand up and do it because they can say lines, but that is not so much the case. You have to study styles and techniques.
Not too many people can say they love what they do and they really like the people they work with.
As an actor, the only thing we can do is play the truth at that moment. Because at any point in time if you play the future, or you play that you know something that the audience does not know, it kills the illusion of reality.
When I was in high school, I read the whole thing about Don King and he had this quote that said, "Set yourself on fire and the world will pay to watch you burn." I thought that was the most amazing thing I'd ever heard and I wrote it on my wall.
I haven't been able to grasp the concept of putting your life on the line for whatever reason people go into the military for. Some people just want to pay their bills, some people believe in their country and some people do it because their parents did it, but that's rough.
People don't come to Marvel movies for personal life subplots, no.
Practice your improv more than learn your lines. 'Cause there's no way you'll be able to learn all those lines in a short time. You have to realize what you know and what you don't know - and what you don't know, just come up with three alternate lines or improv that you can put in that spot.
One thing that I've been very vocal about roles I take, and my representation has been very smart about, is that I didn't go to Juilliard to be "Thug #2" in movies. I like to be challenged. I'd say that about 40% of the roles I've done have been written for white men.
The advise my dad gave me: "To know is to study." Get some training under your belt, so that nobody what somebody asks you to do, you know how to handle it accordingly. I learned so much while working, because I developed a solid work ethic in school. Whereas, a lot of my friends had no work ethic; and because of that, they're sitting at home today.
I enjoy where I am and I don't have a problem with being Steve Buscemi, Stanley Tucci, Don Cheadle, or Jeffrey Wright. They're not the lead of every movie they're in, but every time you see them they're really good.
With all the movies I've done, I still get recognized from my episode of 'Law & Order' more than anything else. It never fails.
