James Ransone

“Drama is easy to fool people with, but you can't trick people into laughing.”

“Can I be a leading man? I don't believe myself to be; I don't think that I am, but I'm in this place as a performer where I think about how to make things smaller, more subtle.”

“My father was a Vietnam vet, and he was Green Beret.”

“I'm such a hater, and will hate on anything.”

“Baltimore breeds a really specific type of weirdo. Animal Collective is from Baltimore. Dan Deacon, John Waters. There's a through line of weirdness and a hard edge that I see when I meet people from that area.”

“I try not to be super self-referential about my work because it becomes like navel gazing at a certain point.”

“I like female directors that gravitate toward masculine things. I think the danger of a male director is the over-fetishization of the masculinity.”

“There's a bunch of cities I'm not crazy about, but I love Chicago. I love the musical history - the mid-'90s indie rock scene, Chicago house music. It's a great town.”

“Just because I try to read a lot of stuff doesn't mean I can fully conceptualize all of these intense, big, abstract ideas.”

“I'm friends with a lot of Brits, and they tell me when they're over here what a huge phenomenon 'The Wire' has become. Some things just attain critical mass after they're already dead and buried, and I don't know why it was the case with 'The Wire'.”

“In my twenties, I was a huge, insane risk-taker.”

“I just auditioned for 'The Wire' like I just auditioned for any other job.”

“I probably don't make as much money as people think I make. I make more than the usual medium household. I'm one of the few middle class actors out there. The microcosm of Hollywood reflects the macrocosm of international finance.”

“I'm not going to say I'm really streetwise, but I might be more than most people.”

“Mars would seem, to me, to be the best place to focus our collective effort as a species... I think people would like to experience something sort of hopeful in terms of where we go next... as a species.”

“I always make this comparison between Bob Dylan and David Simon. Not in the most flattering way possible - these two intellectual Jews who totally identify with the black man's struggle!”

“I think all art - if it's good - is a result of really trying to create something that you can't put into words. Where language ends is where good art begins.”

“I can usually play polarizing characters.”

“'Generation Kill' was not a very glamorous shoot. For all intents and purposes, it was low budget, and all the money they had went to what you see on the screen.”

“Idris Elba saved my butt in a point in my career that he can do whatever he wants, and I will back his decision no matter what. He got me one of my first pretty big studio gigs, and we had never worked together... It was a time in my life where I really needed it. So whatever Idris wants to do, I'm down with.”