I put everything I had into it - all my feelings and everything I'd learned in 46 years of living, about family life and fathers and children. And my feelings about racial justice and inequality and opportunity.

I have tales to tell, but I don't tell them. Discretion. Discretion.

Inside of all the makeup and the character and makeup, it's you, and I think that's what the audience is really interested in... you, how you're going to cope with the situation, the obstacles, the troubles that the writer put in front of you.

I never liked the name Eldred. Since nobody knew me in New York, I just changed to my middle name.

I put everything I had into it - all my feelings and everything I'd learned in 46 years of living, about family life and fathers and children. And my feelings about racial justice and inequality and opportunity.

I'm not a do-gooder. It embarrassed me to be classified as a humanitarian. I simply take part in activities that I believe in.

The emotion is the music and the script is the libretto.