Whenever you're feeling moments of discomfort, that means true change is happening for you.
I hope people will see how harmful words are and how irresponsible we can be when saying the wrong things at the wrong time to certain people.
I'm from the old school; hard work pays off.
Spike Lee's been doing it for a long time now. We're all standing on his shoulders.
I knew every one of my father's lines in 'Glory' - I broke the VHS tape - but I hid my love of acting to make it as my own man.
Like acting, undercover detective work requires a lot of performance. There's just more pressure because it's life-or-death situations.
There's some men and women out there that are doing their job the right way. They're protecting and serving complete strangers in their communities the right way. And it's a thankless job. Obviously, there's a lot of information out on cops not doing their jobs correctly, but the ones that are should be celebrated.
The injury that ended my time in football turned out to be serendipitous. I tore my Achilles while training for a pending tryout with the New York Giants, and when it snapped, so did my career, basically. That's what led me to gain the confidence to get into the acting world on my own terms.
Oh, talking about private school, man, I had cornrows, and when I picked 'em out, certain people that didn't look like me always wanted to touch 'em. One time, I just said, 'Yo, hell no.'
There are a lot of Washingtons that have played football. I could just blend in more and carve out my own name quietly.
I got a scholarship, so I was getting my independence and not paying for school. And then here comes the NFL. 'Now you got an opportunity to get drafted? Guess we'll do that.' I did, all right.
My mother is very positive and encouraging and nurturing, as a mother should be. She's my auditioning partner. She says when it's not good enough; she says when I'm ready.
On a Spike Lee set, everybody seems to want to be there and is motivated to work in unison and do the best they can.
Ask me trivia on 'Sex and the City,' and I will know it. I rewatch it every year. Samantha? Charlotte? Those are my girls.
I've had the acting bug since I was, like, five. But growing up, I saw how people treated me differently when they knew who my father was, even the stuff I did on the field. Sometimes I'd rush for 100 yards, and the headline would be, 'Denzel's son runs for 100 yards.' That's where the suppression of that bug came from.
It's a thankless job for police officers, period, but specifically for men and women of color protecting and serving.
This is a privilege, what we get to do. To be able to tell stories. It's a luxury. So I have a business-like approach to it, the same way I had with football.
My mom had an encounter with the KKK when she was, I think, 7 years old in North Carolina. She snuck into a cross burning. I'm so lucky she didn't get caught, because I wouldn't be here.
I had family in Carolina who were very hood and talked differently in this sort of Southern cadence.
So many people - DPs, writers, and the assistants that go on to be directors and writers - come from the School of Spike Lee. He's almost set up an Institution of Spike Lee.
