Holt McCallany

“I love boxing. I really respect the guys and admire the guys who do it. But, I'm very, very happy with my career as an actor. I made the right choice and things are really working out for me right now, but I won't pretend that there isn't a part of me that always secretly wanted to be a boxer.”

“I've always believed my success in the entertainment business is an inevitability. You have to believe that; you have to be an optimist.”

“I love the whole world of boxing and the sense of community that exists there.”

“The greatest gift that an actor can have is good scripts because then you're relieved of the responsibility of trying to elevate the material.”

“I would say that one of the really special gifts about playing an athlete is that it's the best motivation you'll ever have to get in top shape and stay in top shape because you know that you're going to be expected to deliver.”

“I always wanted to play a boxer because some of my favorite films, as a boy, were those great boxing movies, like 'Raging Bull', 'Rocky', 'The Set Up', 'Fat City and Hard Times'. I just loved those films.”

“You've got to wake up every morning and believe, 'I was born to do this.'”

“I take my hat off to my friend, Mark Wahlberg, because I know that it took him a long time to make 'The Fighter', and he overcame a lot of obstacles to do it, and now the film is an unqualified success.”

“Not all television scripts are created equal. And the process is ridiculous. They send you a script and want you in the next morning. That's not how acting works. You can do anything to me as an actor; I'm a very resilient guy. Just don't rush me. If you ask me to do it immediately with no time to prepare, I know you have contempt for actors.”

“I had been in the gym training for many, many years, but I definitely stepped it up when it was time to get into shape to play 'Lights'. I began trying to live the life of a boxer, and that means everything that you would expect.”

“I love boxing, and boxing has always been my favorite sport. I was always into it, and I boxed recreationally all of my life.”

“I've done a lot of fight scenes, and I always find that it's better that they be meticulously choreographed. You want them to look as real as possible, but you don't want anyone to get hurt. So I believe in really working it out in rehearsal, and when you get to the set, just go for it 100 percent.”

“When I do a movie, I have the script. I know how it begins and how it ends. I know what my character does and where he's going. If I have ideas I want to express or changes I want to make, there's one guy: the director. It's different in television.”