The lessons I learned in Sunday School have kept me on track

Success? I don't know what that word means. I'm happy. But success, that goes back to what in somebody's eyes success means. For me, success is inner peace. That's a good day for me.

[Saniyya Sidney] was very serious about her work and her craft, and she wanted to be good, and she wanted to work on it. So I said, "Ok." It was as simple as that. She was just right. She just has it.

My mother never gave up one me. I messed up in school so much they were sending me home, but my mother sent me right back.

Acting is like music and you improvise. It's like jazz, there's no rhyme or reason to it. It's not a plan. You practice to music and you just play it.

[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.

That's what I tell young actors. "You don't have to compromise. Go do some theater and wait for an appropriate role."