Tom Cruise is one of the most wonderful, kind, and generous men that I've ever met.
It goes back in the black community that the police are not your friends. That's an old, old, deep understanding that we have, that it's going to take a lot to undo that in our minds.
We have to give people dreams; we have to give people hope. In terms of government, in terms of society, that's our goal. You can't have a group of people that don't dream, that see themselves as dead or in jail.
I think if you just hang in there long enough and keep doing what you know is your sweet spot, I think the world eventually catches up to you.
Family is funny, and so it was not an unnatural thing for me, growing up, not to know anything about my dad or about the Vance side of our family.
I love Tom Cruise. I've been a Tom Cruise fan for a long time.
Wes Anderson is a perfectionist, so you have to just be ready to try it this way, try it this way, try it that way, and then try it this way. And then, once you think you've got it all and it's done, then you're going to be called back in two or three months so you can try it that way and try it this way. You've got to give him all of it.
I've done a lot of theater, and I know that it's a different audience each time who doesn't know the story, and we have to tell it.
The life of an editor is not a glamorous one. You're a fixer; you make things better.
I've done a lot of Shakespeare as a young man; I was involved with Shakespeare and Company.
When I got out of Yale Drama School, I was completely broke.
I've done a lot of movies, but my favorite was 'Blind Faith.'
I would love to take a crack at 'Long Day's Journey Into Night.'
There's a lot going on in the Bassett-Vance household, a lot of balls in the air.
Eventually, you know the rhythm of your character, of the set of the piece. It takes less energy for you to hit that point, and then everything resonates. But initially, it takes a tremendous amount of energy. You just hope it's gonna be okay and you don't forget your lines and those cameras.
We were raised in the black community not to trust the police, and I believe, in the white community, they were raised to actually be a policeman.
Around 1969, my family had just bought a house in a lower-middle-class white neighborhood two blocks away from school. Then, all of a sudden, all the white people left the neighborhood and the school.
Our parents didn't let us watch a lot of television growing up. We had Disney on Sunday nights, and at 8:30, they were like, 'Turn it off! Go to bed!'
It's one of the roles of a lifetime to be able to play someone like Mr. Cochran who was so influential. People knew about his work in regard to police brutality. He was very much a staple in the community - someone who, if there was trouble, people knew, 'Go get Johnnie Cochran.'
I didn't know anything about acting at all. I was completely green. I got into it to meet people, to try and figure out what I wanted to do.
