I played Othello, but I didn't sit around thinking how Laurence Olivier did it when he played it. That wouldn't do me any good.
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.
What we did [shooting "Fences"] was we got young students from Carnegie Mellon, the acting and theater students, and we had them as our understudies. I told them, "You have to be off book and be ready. If Viola [Davis] has to leave you have to jump in."
I've worked in a factory. I was a garbage man. I worked in a post office. It's not that long ago. I like to think that I'm just a regular guy.
Religion to me is when man gets ahold of spirituality: "My god is right, yours is wrong." Religion to me is the human condition. "If you're a Muslim, you can't be a Christian." That to me is religion.
Every punch that's thrown is mine. Every punch that's caught, I catch.
I always think it's not what we know that's terrifying; it's what we don't know. That's sort of pervasive with everything in life.
We've all had some level of injustice, whether 20 years in prison, or 20 minutes sitting in your car waiting for a police officer to determine your future. Or even a few moments in an elevator with some woman clutching her purse thinking you're going to rob her ¾ regardless of celebrity, that has happened to me.
When people protest and are upset with a movie, it becomes a big hit. They hated Passion of The Christ, it worked out pretty well for the box office. So let's get that going.
It could be that it's not that different. Circumstances, no matter what the color is, could be similar.
Viola [Davis] is one of the great actors of her generation. She has one of these moments in the theater that I don't even know how to describe.
We had a guy, a gentlemen by the name of Mr. Greenleaf who lived behind the house we were shooting [Fences], and he was like a part of the movie.He would come downstairs, and he couldn't hear well to say, "Ya'll want some coffee?"
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.
I remember my mother and father arguing about light bulbs because my father thought he could save money by putting 25-watt bulbs instead of 60-watt bulbs and my mother was trying to explain to him that her children needed to learn to read so that they could go to college. He couldn't see that.
Where I think the most work needs to be done is behind the camera, not in front of it.
When you don't understand something, you label it and condemn it" (94) - Danny Glover, "The Fundamental Things
My role 14 years ago in Richard III - that was the first time I played a bad guy and learned a lot about it - they have all the fun!
[Martin] Scorsese probably could have directed Schindler's List and [Steven] Spielberg probably could have directed Goodfellas. But it's as much to do with the difference in culture as it is with race.
I got on my knees and sort of communicated with the spirits. When I came out, I was in charge. I couldn't have acted that, I couldn't have written that.
I still have my unemployment books and I remember when I worked for the sanitation department and the post office.
That's what I tell young actors. "You don't have to compromise. Go do some theater and wait for an appropriate role."
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.
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.
One good thing about acting in film is that it's good therapy.
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.
