It's important for us to tell our stories.
If it ain't on a page, it ain't on a stage.
I know, as an actor, I don't like sharing everything with the director. And it's fine if they don't with me.
As the filmmaker, yes, I have to look out for everybody. But I don't have to know everybody's approach.
It's not easy for me to admit that I've been standing in the same place for 18 years.
Come on, I know bad acting when I hear it.
Say what you really want to say.
You don't have to kill somebody to play a murderer. You have to read the script and interpret the character.
In the movie I realized, I had the luxury of getting to see how the other person feels.
[Rose from "Fences"] couldn't just jump out there. Not just because of economic reasons but because how she was looked at in society at the time. There were a lot of factors that made you stay I guess.
I asked my mother I said, "You divorced my dad, how did you decide? She said, "I decided twelve years before he knew it." I was like wow; I'm learning something new every day.
I talked to my mother about it a lot. I asked her what it was like to grow up in New York and Harlem in the 1920s and 1930s, and I asked her about a woman leaving her husband. I asked her about how she would feel about that woman, and my mother grew up in the Church Of God In Christ, and she told me that the woman might be isolated because the other women thought she might go and come after their husbands. That's how they thought then.
[My father] could see as far as he could see and my mother wanted us to go to college so it was a very real part of my life.
I remember my father telling me that just like Troy, he could get me in with the water department where he worked in New York. He talked about how he could get me on the job, and if I stayed 25 years, I could probably work my way up to be a supervisor and how it was a good union and all of the benefits and that I was going to make $20,000 in 50 years or whatever it was. He couldn't see that far.
I remember my mother and father arguing about light bulbs because my father thought he could save money by putting 25-watt bulbs instead of 60-watt bulbs and my mother was trying to explain to him that her children needed to learn to read so that they could go to college. He couldn't see that.
That's where you can find things and modulate your performance and give the other actors something fresh to respond to. We've probably all worked with actors who when it's suddenly your close up, they get sleepy. I don't like that. It's selfish acting, and I won't tolerate it.
People tend to relax when they're off camera. That's when they should be working the hardest.
I try to encourage actors to work harder off screen because that's where you find things.
You start to find a rhythm and usually if it makes me laugh or comment in the editing room then I knew that's what's going to happen in the audience. That first reaction is usually the right reaction.
[Having monologue] are talking to somebody even if it's just to yourself, convince yourself if that's what you're trying to do.
It's tricky with monologues, and I never like to use that word. Like I told the actors, you are talking to somebody; there is no such thing as a monologue.
What we did [shooting "Fences"] was we got young students from Carnegie Mellon, the acting and theater students, and we had them as our understudies. I told them, "You have to be off book and be ready. If Viola [Davis] has to leave you have to jump in."
I had the kid [on "Fences" ] who understudied me so I could stand back and think about shots so he had to learn the blocking and everything. I'd come in early sometimes, and they 'd be in there rehearsing and working on their stuff. I didn't want them to feel like, "Oh these are people who can't be touched." We're all working actors; we're all trying to get better.
We rehearsed for two weeks [in "Fences"], and we taped out the whole house in the front, and the rooms, and we stood it up like a play. We tried to get off book and gave people small props.
I worked with Sidney Lumet years ago, and we had a long rehearsal process, and he would tape out the entire set on the stage, so I stole that from him.
Follow AzQuotes on Facebook, Twitter and Google+. Every day we present the best quotes! Improve yourself, find your inspiration, share with friends
or simply: