It's great to be in a film that's able to have people really want to become socially conscious, to walk out of the theatre and want to do something.

It's great to be in a film that's able to have people really want to become socially conscious, to walk out of the theatre and want to do something.

We're always trailing, as far as the amount of roles that are written for us and the films that are being made that have black characters in them. I don't know if that's going to change.

But I think it's intoxicating when somebody is so unapologetically who they are.

But most scripts are terrible. Most projects are bad, that's just kind of the way it is. And I'm not really attracted to those.

For me, it's always just been about finding material that I think is creative and interesting and fun and something that can expand me and that I can hopefully do something with.

I also believe that you are what you have to defend, and if you're a black man that's always going to be the bar against which you are judged, whether you want to align yourself with those themes or not. You can think of yourself as a colourless person, but nobody else is gonna.

I don't like message movies either.

I don't like movies that are trying to preach and trying to tell you how to feel.

I imagine it was much different in the 1970s. That was the Renaissance for black actors, albeit in blaxploitation movies. There was a much greater preponderance of work then than there is now.

I prefer film to TV because of the amount of time film affords you that TV doesn't (though theater is probably my favorite and the scariest place of all).

I think if you were to look at my resume in total you would see a lot of things that are kind of all over the map.

I think we should all be more concerned about the environment and the effects of global warming. It will be pointless to talk about all the issues that divide us when it's 300 degrees outside.

I understand what's it like to work all week and on Friday night just want to go and leave your brain at the door, buy some popcorn and be thrilled by something.

I used to record but just in my own studio or in my friend's back when I toyed with the idea of being a rapper.

I want to be a part of great things.

I want to see somebody go to jail over the financial crisis and not just black, brown and poor whites over humbles and minor drug beefs.

I was about to write that in the future I would chose my words more carefully but I'm sure I won't.

I've been doing this since I was 10 years old, inhabiting different people and playing different roles.

I've never been a part of a film before that offers such a platform into real issues, that raises social awareness and has the potential to change things.

If people in this country think of Africa as a place with kids and flies swarming around their heads, then they won't understand that these people are you and you are them.

Many of my friends and family are scratching it out somewhere decidedly south of the ever widening gap between the haves and have nots, looking at losing their homes, colleges they can't afford and healthcare they can't avail themselves of.

No, it's not comfortable; I hate watching myself. You don't like when you hear your voice on your voicemail; imagine having to see yourself 30 feet wide and 30 feet big.

People have always been obsessed by celebrities. There are just more outlets and opportunities to make a living exploiting that obsession nowadays.

So often when Black men have to play roles on TV, we're either the noble savage or we're completely a savage, and there's no nuance.

The process changes slightly from role to role. Obviously, there are different things you're called on to do. You're not digging deep for Basher Tarr like I was for Paul Rusesabagina, but at the end of the day it's still all make-believe and you still are trying as realistically as you can to depict these characters.

We're trying to do what Miles Davis would have wanted us to do, which is approach it as artists with his life as the canvas.

I understand what’s it like to work all week and on Friday night just want to go and leave your brain at the door, buy some popcorn and be thrilled by something.

My best film composing experience was with Elia Kazan.

I was lucky enough to occasionally break out of that racist situation that prevails in the Hollywood film production community. But it was racist then and it will always be that way. It will never be otherwise.

'Batman' took 10 months to film, and by the time I stopped working on it, it took a long time before my English accent came out again. I was actually having to try for it.

Luck is everything... My good luck in life was to be a really frightened person. I'm fortunate to be a coward, to have a low threshold of fear, because a hero couldn't make a good suspense film.

I still feel that a movie has to attempt to say something - even if it fails miserably. But I've sort of given up on believing that I'm going to change the world with every film I choose to act in.

It's the difficulty we had with Mr. Bean, actually, when it went from TV to film. You certainly discover that you need to explain more about a character.

To make a documentary is one thing, to make a feature film is quite another.

I mean when the play was on in New York I was starting to get film offers coming through, and since the film's come out I get offered more than I used to, but it happens incrementally.

I think it would be very boring dramatically to have a film where everybody was a lawyer or doctor and had no faults. To me, the most important thing is to be truthful.

I like doing them and they're ridiculous and the actors can improvise a lot, and they don't have to be really realistic characters that hit a very specific tone as in a feature film. They're really fun, I want to make more of them definitely.

One of the most interesting aspects of the film project was collaborating with so many people - directors, filmmakers, and writers - over a five-year period. I learned that there are two components to this.

The best thing I can think of would be to create a union between something as beautiful and powerful and wonderful as Hollywood films and a criticism of the status quo. That's my dream, to make such a German film.

If he didn't fall in love he would have never come back near the end of the film. Because, what man is going to dishonor himself so that he comes back in front of the man that took a woman away from him... and warns her to save her life?

Robert Altman's Nashville is my all-time favorite film because it covers all the bases - it's original, moving, and has something to say, but also funny and incredibly entertaining.

I never see a novel as a film while I'm writing it. Mostly because novels and films are so different, and I'm such an internal novelist.

I have a movie coming out called Spun, which will be at the Toronto Film Fest.

Well ironically my last three roles have all been a mother. One was a Canadian film where the baby was taken away because she is a drug addict, in Irish Jam I play a mother to a four year old. I think in the future I'll be able to handle the role with a lot more depth.

And when you see it the first time you put the film together, the roughest cut, is when you want to go home and open up your veins and get in a warm tub and just go away. And then it gradually, maybe, works its way back, somewhere toward that spot you were at before.

A good film script should be able to do completely without dialogue.

My advice to young film-makers is this: don't follow trends, start them!

The whole aspect of cinema and film festivals should be a moment to come together and celebrate art and humanity. It would be a shame if there was such a divide.