Just 'cause you pour syrup on something doesnt make it pancakes

[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 said to George Lucas, "I'd like a purple lightsaber." And he said, "Why?" and I said, "I just want to be able to find myself. I'm the most powerful Jedi in the universe, and I think it would be an interesting thing for me to have a different color lightsaber than anybody else."

I've never considered myself a comedian. I'm a comedic actor.

I met [ Samuel L. Jackson ] for the first time on The Today Show. He came out of an elevator. I was promoting A Mighty Wind and he was promoting something else. He said, "I hear we're going to be working together." I said, "On what?" He said, 'The Man.' I hadn't heard his name mentioned before. I made a few calls and found out he had the script and was interested. That was it.

Hair is very, very distinctive. I started that with that boxing movie I did, The Great White Hype. The director wanted me to look like Don King, and everybody knew who Don King was. But I didn't want to be Don King. I wanted the man to be Rev. Fred Sultan, so I decided to make him look like Julius Caesar. And from that point on, I just decided, I had this great wig-maker, so I just found hairstyles that I felt would be distinctive for every character. Like an adventure.

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.