Michael Emerson Quotes

I think people respond to villains because people in general are more villainous than heroic.

I've been blessed by doing classic plays on Broadway, which was one of my great dreams forever.

My mother always told me growing up I had a punchable face. Little did I know she was predicting my television career.

To a large extent, people's interest in the character is the mystery of the character.

Now they had to sit in separate places and sometimes they'd even have to sit outside and look through the windows. But they did worship together.

In part because they had no choice, right? If you were a slave, you did what the master said. And they said to worship: "You're going to worship with us."

I really do think that every time you play a role well, you are in danger of being identified with that role until the next big thing comes along.

I've played villains on stage - you know, the Iagos and so on - but I think of myself as a funny person. I mostly did comedies before I did TV work.

Every pastor I talk to says, and particularly if they're African American they'll say, "I'm not black enough for African Americans. I'm not white enough for the whites. I'm not Hispanic enough."

I liked the scenes with the baby, but the baby steals all the scenes that you're in. So that would get old after a while, because the baby is too perfect. I liked being high on ecstasy.

It's the sad fact of how race still works in our country. We find that over and over again.

I think whites are used to being in power, so when whites think we ought to have integrated churches they think, "People ought to come to our church. What can we do to get them to come?"

But what we found in the study is that churches are ten times less diverse than the neighborhoods they sit in. So there's something more going on than just reflecting the neighborhood, yeah.

So you find a lot of these sixth Americans congregate in these interracial congregations. They hang out together at work, at school, wherever.

And sometimes the clergy are blindsided by that. Other times they realize that ahead of time and say they're not going to use those terms. So it gets complicated for sure.

I see this in the way that sermons are preached. How would you give a Black Nationalist speech or campaign for the Republicans when you're an integrated congregation? It doesn't happen.

I see it happen in uniracial congregations all the time. But people - when they're in mixed company, we speak differently.

There's always that sense of because we're so racially defined, if you're trying to cross the boundaries you don't fit into any particular space.

I ask the clergy why don't I see myself represented in leadership? And I'm told, and this happens quite a bit, "We don't think about race when we hire. We just hire the best person for the job."

Then of course there are bigger things that matter, like who do I see up there in the congregation? Do I see myself up there? Well, I don't.

What sort of difficulties would happen when people of different cultures try to come together to worship? Tiny little things such as let's tell jokes with each other.

So different groups have different definitions, and then they clash on those. So it takes adept leadership to say we're going to work through these.

Absolutely, although every congregation will say, you know, every worship leader will say it's vital. It's very important, but again these are, you know, these are different cultural styles.

It worries me a little bit the reach and power of TV. More people saw me in The Practice than will ever see me in all the stage plays I ever do. Which is sort of humbling. Or troubling. Or both.

As you may know, previously as Attorney General and now as Governor, I have supported legislation to close the gun show loophole in North Carolina.

I think of myself as a problem-solver. I want to go in and help the director and the writer to get the best they can out of the text they're working with.

Life will be simpler when I don't spend two-thirds of the year in the middle of the Pacific.