The thing I get the most [in public] is, 'Hey, Eugene.' You know what I mean? There's no catch phrase like: 'What a week I'm having.' People will actually just say, 'Hey, Eugene' or 'Hi, Eugene.' It's a great thing; they feel that comfortable calling me by my first name. It's not being forward. It depends how you say it. I think they can't help themselves. They think they know me. I find it gratifying.

I read, watch television, watch movies, hang out with family. I like my clothes and I have great cars, and I drive those. But for most people, it's like, "That's boring. You don't club? You don't party?"

It was actually a lot more helpful to have Calvin Hart, a cop, as my template. He was also my technical advisor on Shaft. This time, I kinda got to go to Jersey City with him, and hang around, and watch him interact with other cops, people in the projects, and see what it means to be him. People call him 'Big Daddy' and he's this larger-than-life hero to a lot of people.

[The Man] was a case where it was a funny role teamed up with another actor. It's a great teaming. And the role was a bigger role. It wasn't so much that it was a co-starring role. This is not a new direction. I'm not saying, 'No. I'm only now co-starring.' It just happens it's a co-starring role.

I voted for Barack because he was black. 'Cuz that's why other folks vote for other people - because they look like them... That's American politics, pure and simple.

The [Oregon] Journal in its head and heart will stand for the people, be truly Democratic and free from political entanglements and machinations, believing in the principles that promise the greatest good to the greatest number-to ALL MEN, regardless of race, creed or previous condition of servitude... It will be a fair newspaper, not a dull and selfish sheet.

I often think, "How many ways have I died in the movies?" I guess I can find out now. I'm always thinking of ways that I haven't died. "Well, I've been killed this way in this movie, but I haven't died this way yet." I don't think I've ever been guillotined, or anything like that.