We can't afford to deny our past in a bid to be empowered. But what we can do is contextualize the past.

I was sometimes called 'coconut' when I was at school.

One of the things I have an allergic reaction to playing, especially as a black actor, is the mandatory kind of best friend/cop/detective type. You will never see me in that movie.

You can’t have people curating culture in this way when we need to see things in order to reform from them.

If you merely focus on what we already know, then it's not revelatory. You may as well just go and watch a documentary or a few videos on Youtube, and you're good.

I don't have a tailor, but I do love clothes.

Excellence is the best weapon against prejudice.

Find the audience, be excellent, and you will be fine.

I truly believe that one of the things that has been lacking in the USA is a spirit of repentance about the injustices of slavery and the injustices of segregation and racism generally.

Considering that I'm British and I talk the way I do, I love it when a director takes a chance on me.

There's a nimble quality to the way a television actor can work. When that muscle gets strong it's a very valuable thing.

The best teacher is the one who suggests rather than dogmatizes, and inspires his listener with the wish to teach himself.

For fear will rob him of all if he gives too much.

The Iago trance is a state that we've really come to accept as normal, even if we may not feel it to be natural.

I love the idea of doing totally different types of guys for different projects. I love that I get to do this. It's so fun.

I love doing commercials! Usually, they have enough money that they can take time and photograph it well.

I would like to think I will be a guy who knows when it's time to stop. I don't want to be a guy who hung on and hung on. I do not have a goal in mind of a year or a statistic.

That man will never be unwelcome to others who makes himself agreeable to his own family.

The country has its charms-cheapness for one.

[Barack Obama] still fighting these mysterious, powerful forces trying to stop him, yet he's the president.

You know, being confident isn't the same as being right.