Jay Ellis

“Everyone has a role, no matter where you are on the globe.”

“I worked for a smoothie company, and that was rough. I also sold women's shoes for a very long time. That was super rough.”

“I love the 'Fresh Prince of Bel-Air.' I love everybody. I loved every single person in the Cosby house, I loved every single person who went to Hillman.”

“I want to create this pool of talent to draw from, and I hope that people get inspired to make more web series and bring them to me to help develop.”

“Dating, to people, can mean completely different things.”

“I love to study people and pick apart what makes a person or character who they are. I never want to get complacent in that.”

“Storytelling is always evolving, but if you allow people with new voices and perspectives to come in, you open audiences up to different walks of life.”

“A lot of what you're seeing these characters go through is something that either is a story one of the actors told in the writers' room or one of the writers themselves told in the writers' room.”

“My dad was in the service, so I went to 12 schools in 13 years.”

“I run the material, always with two people, sometimes three. We all see things so differently, so to get a couple of people's perspectives on what I'm doing and the material itself is insanely helpful for honing in on what to take into the audition room.”

“I had a journalist slap me, and it wasn't anyone that I had ever met before. I was at the airport.”

“I think our life is a journey, and we make mistakes, and it's how we learn from those mistakes and rebound from those mistakes that sets us on the path that we're meant to be on.”

“I like to be fulfilled in telling stories and in creating, but I'm just a curious person.”

“There are tons of talented people out there, and we just don't get a chance to get into this system. I want to be a part of that. I want to help these young, diverse, unique voices tell stories.”

“After the success of 'Empire' and 'How to Get Away with Murder' and 'Scandal' and 'Power' and 'Black-ish', which all had characters that were genuine, authentic, and had the language of real people, I found myself coming into pilot season and every network just wanted to have their version of one of those shows.”

“When you love somebody, you gotta be honest with them even if it'll hurt them.”

“Agents run a business, and their business is their talent; some are more general and broad and can rep a little bit of everything; some are more niche. You have to be specific with who you approach and how.”

“Whoopi Goldberg, Lily Tomlin, Julia Louis-Dreyfus - I put Issa Rae in that category of comic genius.”

“I think we still live in this era of hyper-masculinity.”

“I'm insanely curious about life and everyone's story and where they come from and how they got to be who they are.”