Ving Rhames

“How do you cut off the human side and just maintain being professional? So what I've done is I've incorporated that with Kojak - there's times when he allows the human condition, the human experience, to integrate into him as a professional.”

“I really feel that there are things in the ocean that we have no idea about.”

“In about 9th grade, an English teacher told me I had a talent to act. He said I should audition for a performing arts high school, so I did on a whim. I got accepted. Then I got accepted at the Julliard School, and by then, I was serious about it.”

“I think God has blessed each of us with at least one gift. So I think it's a matter of do we find it within our lifetime.”

“Since I graduated college, all I have ever done for a living was acting.”

“I've always been interested in cross-cultural exchange with the youth.”

“There's really not that much difference between you and I. And my name really doesn't matter. Hopefully, my heart and my spirit matters to you. Hopefully.”

“I'm the spokesman for ADT, and ADT, brother, pays better than most actors make on film.”

“Entertainment is needed, and so I do think escapism is needed.”

“Snorkeling the Great Barrier Reef, I saw something - I don't know what it was to this day. My mind couldn't relate to what it was... If I saw it and knew it was a shark, I wouldn't be as afraid, but I saw something that looked prehistoric, and I haven't been snorkeling since.”

“Are you intimidated by me? Because if you're intimidated by me, that's something you'll have to deal with.”

“I live a very simple life.”

“For me, acting was a way of releasing all of this stuff that I had inside - and a way for me to tell the stories of the people I knew, so that their spirit could live through me.”

“People often think I've played the villain more times than I have.”

“I've always been taught to just play the truth of the situation. If comedy comes out of that, or drama, whatever comes out of it, at least I'm playing the truth of the moment-to-moment reality.”

“The more you do a stunt, the more you increase the risk of something happening.”

“The more versatile you make yourself, the more work you get. Training makes you more versatile and ultimately gets you more work. Julliard taught me that.”

“I like to say that I didn't choose acting - acting chose me.”

“I grew up in a poverty-stricken neighborhood, but I didn't really know I was a deprived, poverty-stricken child until the media made me aware of it.”

“Quite honestly I never had a desire to be an actor. I tell people, I did not choose acting; acting chose me. I never grew up wanting to be an actor. I wanted to play football. In about 9th grade an English teacher told me I had a talent to act. He said I should audition for a performing arts high school so I did on a whim. I got accepted.”