Jeffrey Wright

“I don't mind that I am not necessarily a household name, because I think my characters have outshined me. That was by design. And I'm not wanting for appreciation.”

“My mom used to take me to the theater to see the tours that would come through D.C., and I loved it. I loved it. I was absolutely enthralled by the theater and by that world.”

“I think survival, with agency intact, is heroic for anyone or anything.”

“When I started off as an actor, the last thing I wanted to do in the world was make money. I was under the impression, when I started off as an actor, that the more money I made, the more it would diminish from my creativity and my capacity to be an artist.”

“Collaboration is a multilane highway, going in all directions. If there isn't reciprocity, it fails, and it's unsatisfying.”

“Well, I like to be kept on my toes. I look for a challenge. I don't like to recreate steps that I've already walked. I like to see if I can create something new.”

“I don't really consider myself a black man in Hollywood. I live in Brooklyn... and on purpose.”

“We really don't discover fully what 'Westworld' is for this first season, until we get there. The first 10 episodes are the journey. The colors become brighter, the vistas become clearer, and the history is more understood with each step we take along the way.”

“I played football and lacrosse in high school. They wanted me to play football at Amherst, which I did not do because my schedule was full enough as it was. But over the course of my student days, I played pretty much every sport out there.”

“I started acting when I was at Amherst my junior year, and my lacrosse career kind of started to flop sideways after that.”

“I think I was afraid of what I might say when I got onto someone's stage or in front of someone's camera.”

“The great thing about movies is that they're collaborative. And the worst thing is that they're collaborative.”

“What I've appreciated about the 'Bond' films is there's always been a subtle social relevance to them. They've always commented on the times.”

“I took a class in college... I think we were reading some short Chekhov plays, and I knew the first day of the class that I was going to be an actor. It was just the bizarrest thing, but it just felt like home.”

“At the most base level, what an actor represents to the film industry is an investment. Depending on the risk profile, an investor needs 1,000 reasons to commit and one reason not to. That means you've got to do more work on your own, and that the machine is not going to necessarily do the blocking for you. The machine rarely accepted my code.”

“Too often a story is examined through biased eyes, without a sensitivity for everyone who forged it. It's seen from the point of view of the great white savior, and rarely is the perspective of the slave a part.”

“I'm not sure whether Los Angeles borders on the ocean or on oblivion. I always feel that I'm two steps away from the other side when I'm out there. It's more like a vacation place or a place to visit than a place to hunker down.”

“One of the first things I do when I step onto a set is I scan the set and try to take in every detail, because what I'm trying to find are tools that I can use to incorporate myself into the space and tools that I can use to make the performance authentic and to build on the authenticity of that.”

“Shaft was a pop culture figure along t he lines of, I guess, Dirty Harry - except that he wasn't as much of a racist. So yeah, I was always a fan.”

“Some musicians play blues, others classical jazz or bluegrass. I like to play political roles because I can merge my political interests with my creative interests.”