It's strictly business. If I loan you $25 million, I want my money back. I don't want to hear about the social impact. That's great for you, but now I'm $25 million in the hole, so next time you come to ask me.

When you trust the director you want to trust his or her choices. I don't want to say, 'No, I don't like this girl or that guy," when the director really loves them. No, you want to go with what the director likes.

[Having monologue] are talking to somebody even if it's just to yourself, convince yourself if that's what you're trying to do.

The time to worrying about flying is when you're on the ground. When you're up in the air, it's too late. No point in worrying about it then.

When you look in one direction where Troy's chair was, you could see out through the yard across the street, there was an old cork bar advertisement for five cents. We wanted it to feel like this was real life [in Fences] and that it extended blocks and blocks.

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.

Bad guys need love too.