Lakeith Stanfield

“Music is something I do full-time in real life. I was doing music long before I was even thinking about acting.”

“Hip-hop is not all '2 Chainz' - although '2 Chainz' is awesome. How he does that with metaphors, I don't know.”

“My biggest strength is I'm courageous, or if I am afraid of something, I do it anyway. I do what I feel. It's nothing personal against anyone, so that courageousness has been very good to me.”

“I'm from Victorville - it's about an hour-and-a-half away from Los Angeles, up in the desert. They call it Victimville because it's kind of violent. It's a beautiful place, though. It's quiet.”

“It's a hard thing when you've got guns pointed at you, to still stand up for what you believe in. Jimmie Lee and his family did that, and several others.”

“Although rap is about boasting, it's also about honesty and expressing your emotions.”

“Just listening and going back and forth and exchanging ideas with people. It's a beautiful thing. This is what's really important.”

“My two little twin brothers have autism, so I grew up around it and misunderstood it for a long time.”

“I'm a little baby in a barrel just taking everything in. I'm just so fortunate to do whatever I'm doing.”

“You can be the most intelligent person, and you can have so much potential, but if you don't have a guide by which to channel that energy, then a lot of times, it's futile.”

“That was like my safe place with great teachers where everyone could let down their guard and not feel judged. As soon as we walk outside, it was like, 'Look at these weird drama club kids.' But we all had our own agreement that we were cool in our own way.”

“It's been constant grinding and trying to secure work that I care about, tireless auditions and meetings. I've been fortunate that a lot of cool doors have opened to me, chiefly meeting great people who were inspired by what I've done and what they feel I could bring to their projects.”

“I was born in San Bernardino in summer of '91 and grew up in Riverside, San Bernardino, and Victorville.”

“I always knew I'd be an actor. I always knew I'd at least be on a big screen somewhere.”

“For me, life is like an act within itself. Everything I do is an act. Where I'm going is an act.”

“I've always been super expressive, and I've always liked to express myself any way I can.”

“Victorville gave me opportunity to go inside and explore my imagination a bit.”

“I love 'Watch the Throne,' because Kanye was acting so ratchet.”

“The prison industrial system, things like that are cleverly put in place to attempt to marginalize a certain group of people - and it's not only black, it's replete across the American society.”

“I grew up very poor in a fractured family that was dysfunctional on both sides, but I sort of put up these reflectors to most of the negative things that have occurred in my life. I don't carry around much baggage.”