Ashton Sanders

“I do my own thing, and a lot of people don't. I just move my own way.”

“I wanna be Mahershala Ali in my next life. He's the man. He's a really genuine guy. He's a really great guy, one of my favorite people on this planet.”

“I grew up doing theatre, where I was jumping in and out of plays, year round.”

“'Moonlight' has changed my life externally but also internally... spiritually as well.”

“Despite everything that's going on, people need love.”

“It's awesome that my job is to make people have reactions.”

“If you noticed, I wear high-water pants and white socks, which is inspired by the mod '60s, like the Beatles, the Beach Boys, Jimi Hendrix, what have you. That style of dress during that time is really, really dope to me.”

“I would just encourage my younger self to not care about people's perceptions and to love myself fully and to keep progressing and striving for what you are going to become.”

“The sad reality of it is, as black artists in the industry, we still have to work 10 times harder to get our voices out there.”

“Sometimes people are vulnerable. And that's fine.”

“I like to dress the way I like to dress. I kind of like rebelling against the social norms... I feel uncomfortable wearing just, like, regular stuff.”

“It's really crazy looking back on my bullies or whoever was trying to torment me or tease me, because karma is just, like, crazy.”

“I auditioned for 'Moonlight' without knowing anything. I went in the room, and I didn't know the lines as well as I should have. I didn't know a thing about the script. I wasn't told anything. I heard it was a low-budget film, and my agent told me to do it. I was super-ignorant to it.”

“I'm getting the training I need to progress as an actor. If something comes up and I have to drop, I'll drop.”

“For my career, I want to be able to do projects that have serious context to them or that make me grow as a person and an artist after the experience.”

“It's going to sound cliche, but I started acting as an emotional outlet.”

“There's so many strict ideas and rules, whether it's from religion or it's just generations and generations.”

“Anything that's outside the standard of the average black male is looked down upon. For me, I wasn't raised playing sports. I was artistic, so that was looked down upon by people in my church, and I was teased for that growing up in school, so it goes both ways.”

“Hollywood is showing respect for all different types of art.”

“I'm very much of an individual myself, and I do things sometimes that the next person probably won't, or wouldn't, do because they're not me.”