I've gotten my butt kicked by the best. Jet Li beat me up the best, but Steven Segal can still kick a good butt. It's a different kind of kicking, though.

If they respect the craft and what we're doing and they bring something to the table and they work hard, I don't care what you do as your side job or as your day job.

You can say what you want to about a rapper in a movie, but look at what Ice Cube has done. Ice Cube has created more opportunities for other actors to get jobs in this business than some actors have.

It's just a matter of me opening up the page and whatever is written on the page, that's what I'm here to do.

Romeo Must Die was the first film that I did where I was able to just be free as an actor.

I ain't got nothing. I've got this watch, and these shoes, and that's about it.

I've worked with some actors who can't act.

I provide a little comic relief.

More oftentimes than not, you're automatically guilty before innocent.

I realized my family was funny, because nobody ever wanted to leave our house.

I'm not a comedian. I'm an actor who just happens to be funny on occasion.

Everyone realized I was the innocent victim of a shakedown.

Some of these guys... I've worked with Ice Cube, I think he's an immensely talented rapper and actor.

If you respect the art and you have some talent about you, I'm on your team.

Glenn Close is a living icon. You look at the work, and I think it's wild, because she thinks some of her best work was in Dangerous Liaisons and that's what I believe as well.

I've gotten my butt kicked by the best. Jet Li beat me up the best, but Steven Segal can still kick a good butt. It's a different kind of kicking, though.

I went to the High School for Performing Arts, and to Howard University on a talent scholarship.

My choices were never wrong.

There isn't a switch that I turn on. I'm an actor. This is what I do.

Be ready for when your time comes, you will have that window of opportunity, so seize the moment and capitalise on it.

Set your heights more than what you see around you, see beyond.

You say you're a comedian, you always have to be on guard.

They gave us the freedom just to play and have fun.

Tom Arnold and I, we have a huge firefight scene on top of a German tank. I get to shoot 50 caliber rounds. We shoot a helicopter out of the sky. That's the only fight I'm in.

It's sort of an action flick. You can't be that funny trying to steal diamonds.

It's a remake of a film called Inferno Affairs. It's a Hong Kong film, and if we come anywhere close to what they did in the original, we're going to have a hot property on our hands, because Inferno Affairs is a great piece.

Comedy is second nature for me.

Independent films are where you really get to cut your teeth and have some fun and do the things that mainstream Hollywood doesn't want to do.

Leo couldn't deliver Mr. Martin Scorsese his Oscar with 'The Aviator', but I will go on record to say I will do so in 'The Departed'.

Things are changing. I've been training since I was 9 years old to stretch my wings as an actor dramatically, but have never really been afforded the opportunity to show that.

My wife and I have always trusted each other, and I have to thank her strength.

You take the quote from Sam Jackson about how he'll never work with a rapper, and I can understand where he's coming from because he says rappers can't act.

I realized my family was funny because nobody ever wanted to leave our house.

There are going to be ups and downs in any relationship. It's a team.

The nail that sticks out farthest gets hammered the hardest.

I believe the way I describe the problems in Chicago is that it's a metropolitan area. I've said that everywhere. The uneducated child is not just my problem, it's the state's problem. It's also the federal government's problem.

You need to have tremendous confidence in your work, even a touch of arrogance, chutzpah. Many very fine researchers lack intellectual daring. It's human nature to want to be cozy, secure. But that can be a cul de sac.

All the flowers of all the tomorrows are in the seeds of today.

I was always nervous before a television show, and I still am now. But 'The Great British Bake Off' is a happy show; there is no bad language, and although we do have drama, we deal with it calmly.

I debated between law school and divinity.

If your kids want to paint their bedrooms, as a favor to me, let 'em do it.

I'm not a tanning bed person at all, but I'll get a spray tan.

You know Latin people? African-American people? How our skin ages more slowly? Even though we're dramatic, we move our faces, we eat higher-fat foods, we're the ones with fewer wrinkles - it makes you wonder.

Being with nature opens us up to divine experience.

Some people focus more on sonics. Some people focus more on story. I focus on both sonics and story, but music sometimes, just music itself, can turn into more of a maths problem. I guess everything in life is a math problem, but it can be more about an empirical route to getting the symmetry that you want, and this vibe, sonically.

The catfish is plenty good enough fish for anyone.

I love taking chances.

In capitalist enterprise there is no secure income and no security of wealth.

In a funny way, when things went wrong in my life - and it is my fault that they went wrong, it is not anyone else's fault - and all the glittering outside things were taken away, I was left with the things of most value.