Sometimes when you're the good guy, you're sort of trapped. "Oh, he can't say that." And even when you're playing a real person like a Steven Biko, you're sort of stuck within those confines. So yeah, bad guys do have more fun.

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.

My mother used to tell me man gives the award, God gives the reward. I don't need another plaque.

People tend to relax when they're off camera. That's when they should be working the hardest.

We'll all retire from life at some point. The great thing about acting is you don't necessarily have to retire.

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."

Don't get all sentimental on me, Makes me think I'm gonna die.