Lance Reddick Quotes

You either get better, or you don't progress.

I'm an artist at heart.

I mean, you know actors, we always want to do something else, something different.

When I was working on The Wire with the other actors, scene after scene after scene, I felt like we were singing together. We were dancing together. I'm like, "This is the best ensemble I've ever worked with. I'm working with these cats? Holy mackerel, this is heaven."

If you're going to come at me, come at me respectfully, and I will respond respectfully.

As I got further into my career, as a character of color, if I was going to have the types of opportunities I felt I deserved, and continue to have them, I was going to have to start creating those opportunities for myself.

The African American community is so under-served in the entertainment industry.

Most of the characters I'd played were so different from me, so far from me that I had to transform.

Nothing will ever top 'The Wire.' It was historical. It was black cinema.

Growing up, I never imagined I would be an actor.

'The Wire' really drew on a lot of real-life situations and real-life organizations - it created fiction to make a social statement about reality.

Sometimes you have to say, "No. This is my space." If you're going to come at me, come at me respectfully, and I will respond respectfully.

When you're in a high-stress situation, dynamics between people can change.

It's funny, because in drama school, my greatest strength was my range. So my early career was like that: I played all kinds of different characters.

I’m interested not just in projects that I’ll be starring in, but producing film and TV that’s really quality and great for adults; and when I say great for adults, it doesn’t mean without humor, because I’m also interested in doing comedy.

I started to realize, a lot of times if you go into your memory, your sense memory, you know more than you think you do, from having watched and listened.

Art is art, and journalism is journalism.

Because of the way tech is changing, and becoming cheaper and user-friendly, it's becoming easier to make films cheaply, maintaining quality.

Don't be a victim; if you want to make movies, make movies.

A very odd thing happened to my career when I got The Wire. My career was pretty much a steady climb; I didn't really flatline much. When I did The Wire, that's when I thought all the doors would open, but that's when things flatlined. I had a really hard time just getting seen for film, which was the next step.

I grew up studying music. I went to conservatory.

Notes are tricky in an audition, because I find, more often than not, my instinct is right.

I started acting, almost on a whim to help my music career.

I can only speak as an American, but most journalism here isn't doing its job any more. It's about selling stuff.

You don't see a lot of black rock stars. The music industry tends to be segregated stylistically. It's hard for a black artist to cross over to rock music.