Ving Rhames

Most American actors are taught the Stanislavsky method... Method acting, but I really think that as an actor you have to develop what works for you. There is really not one way of doing anything. There are many ways of achieving the same goal.

The more you do a stunt, the more you increase the risk of something happening.

I like to say that I didn't choose acting - acting chose me.

In about 9th grade, an English teacher told me I had a talent to act. He said I should audition for a performing arts high school, so I did on a whim. I got accepted. Then I got accepted at the Julliard School, and by then, I was serious about it.

Quite honestly I never had a desire to be an actor. I tell people, I did not choose acting; acting chose me. I never grew up wanting to be an actor. I wanted to play football. In about 9th grade an English teacher told me I had a talent to act. He said I should audition for a performing arts high school so I did on a whim. I got accepted.

Since I graduated college, all I have ever done for a living was acting.

I really feel that there are things in the ocean that we have no idea about.

You can feel I am whatever you want to feel I am. God knows who I am, and I know who I am.

If someone's intimidated by me, that's something they have to deal with. When I walk down the streets of New York and an old woman grabs her purse when I pass by, I'm not going to give it a whole lot of energy because I'm not in the wrong. I'm a millionaire, and I'm not thinking about grabbing an old woman's purse.

I saw how, when my brother smoked reefer, it made my mother cry. He was 16 at the time. And I saw that she broke down and cried. I never wanted to hurt my mother, so I kept away from drugs.

I've known Laurence Fishburne for about twenty years.

When I think of the trials and tribulations that black men go through in America and that black artists went through, I feel very privileged.

My approach to the work is the same, whether I had the lead or a supporting role. I consider myself a character actor in the true sense of the word. Unless I'm doing my autobiography, I'm playing a character.

How do you cut off the human side and just maintain being professional? So what I've done is I've incorporated that with Kojak - there's times when he allows the human condition, the human experience, to integrate into him as a professional.

There's really not that much difference between you and I. And my name really doesn't matter. Hopefully, my heart and my spirit matters to you. Hopefully.

I've always been taught to just play the truth of the situation. If comedy comes out of that, or drama, whatever comes out of it, at least I'm playing the truth of the moment-to-moment reality.

I'm from New York, and yet I've done only one film executive-produced by Spike Lee and have never done a film that Spike Lee directed. I've never done a film that Keenan Wayans has directed, or Bill Duke.

I was more interested in playing sports than acting. I didn't take acting too seriously until the end of my junior year.

I try to allow the spirit of the character to live through me. That's the only way I know how to approach acting. I have to live it.

The character of the computer whiz is not one that would normally be associated with me.

When I look at the world, I recognize that unfortunately, it sometimes takes an atrocity like 9/11 to force us to come together.

Are you intimidated by me? Because if you're intimidated by me, that's something you'll have to deal with.

My dogs are family dogs.

You don't have to make, you know, $3 Million dollars a movie, or $20 Million dollars a movie, but if you make a living doing what you love doing, then that's success to me.

Using the Africanist model, each generation should take the family name to a higher place. My father's folks were sharecroppers in South Carolina. He went to Harlem. They were still poor, but they moved up. If my parents didn't do this and offer me this background, I wouldn't be here.

Rottweilers are victims of a stereotype. They're not that bad.

I think God has blessed each of us with at least one gift. So I think it's a matter of do we find it within our lifetime.

Since God is the foundation of my life, anything that streams from that can only be positive.

Quite honestly I never had a desire to be an actor. I tell people, 'I did not choose acting; acting chose me.' I never grew up wanting to be an actor. I wanted to play football.

My wife is a former homicide detective, LAPD. The wonderful thing that I was able to capture is my wife's experiences from human and professional, and how do you deal with some of the atrocities that happen in L.A. and not bring them home.

The more versatile you make yourself, the more work you get. Training makes you more versatile and ultimately gets you more work. Julliard taught me that.

Snorkeling the Great Barrier Reef, I saw something - I don't know what it was to this day. My mind couldn't relate to what it was... If I saw it and knew it was a shark, I wouldn't be as afraid, but I saw something that looked prehistoric, and I haven't been snorkeling since.

I graduated college in 1983, so that's 32 years, and all I've done for a living is act or commercials or voiceovers. So I have nothing to complain about.

The training at Juilliard School is classical training, and it really makes one very versatile.

A lot of times, scripts are written so the character is all one way. Even with 'Bringing Out the Dead,' the character was written a little more generic.

I do fish, and as a matter of fact, I used to do a lot of deep sea fishing, but as far as going into the water, I don't go out deep into the water.

Really, if you get in the ring and box with someone for real, I don't think it is a sport. As far as professional fighters, you are literally putting your life on the line.

Miss Goodblatt would call on me to read. She said I had a talent. So on a whim, I auditioned for the High School of Performing Arts in Manhattan.

'Mission: Impossible' is basically entertainment, and for what it is, it's fine. I don't think most actors become actors to do that type of film.

I graduated on a Friday. By Monday, I was doing Shakespeare in the Park.

People often think I've played the villain more times than I have.

I was never a struggling actor, for which I feel very blessed.

The only difference between working on a huge-budget film and a lesser-budget film, is the quality of lunch and dinner.

I'm the spokesman for ADT, and ADT, brother, pays better than most actors make on film.

I find early jazz to be the most revolutionary music of its time.

I never grew up thinking I wanted to be a quote-unquote star or anything. My thing was just feeling blessed to be able to make my living acting.

I grew up in a poverty-stricken neighborhood, but I didn't really know I was a deprived, poverty-stricken child until the media made me aware of it.

I think there's so much we don't know and the unknown in the ocean; every 10 years or so, we find some fossil that's been there before mankind.

In this industry, very few actors can control their career.

I saw that crime pays, but I never got involved in crime.

I don't give Hollywood the power to limit me. Only God can limit me.

For me, acting was a way of releasing all of this stuff that I had inside - and a way for me to tell the stories of the people I knew, so that their spirit could live through me.