A man once told me that you step out of your door in the morning, and you are already in trouble. The only question is are you on top of that trouble or not?

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 called Scott Rudin, and I told him I wanted to do the play [Fences], so that's how the ball got rolling. I never said, "I'll do the play, and the next year I'll do the film, I just wanted to do the play."

At the end of the day, it's not about what you have or even what you've accomplished. It's about what you've done with those accomplishments. Its about who you've lifted up, who you've made better. It about what you've given back" (23).

We just had to stay out-of-the-way [in Fences]. [August Wilson] already wrote a masterpiece. And you really don't know how it's going to work until you get it in front of an audience.

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!

Where I think the most work needs to be done is behind the camera, not in front of it.