To simply wake up every morning a better person than when I went to bed.
The journey has been incredible from its beginning.
So it's been kind of a long road, but it was a good journey altogether.
I lived in a country where I couldn't live where I wanted to live. I lived in a country where I couldn't go where I wanted to eat. I lived in a country where I couldn't get a job, except for those put aside for people of my colour or caste.
So much of life, it seems to me, is determined by pure randomness.
We all suffer from the preoccupation that there exists... in the loved one, perfection.
I did not go into the film business to be symbolized as someone else's vision of me.
I wouldn't change a single thing, because one change alters every moment that follows it.
If I'm remembered for having done a few good things, and if my presence here has sparked some good energies, that's plenty.
As a man, I've been representative of the values I hold dear. And the values I hold dear are carryovers from the lives of my parents.
I wanted to explore the values that are at work, underpinning my life.
I decided in my life that I would do nothing that did not reflect positively on my father's life.
So I had to be careful. I recognized the responsibility that, whether I liked it or not, I had to accept whatever the obligation was. That was to behave in a manner, to carry myself in such a professional way, as if there ever is a reflection, it's a positive one.
Mine was an easy ride compared to Jackie Robinson's.
I learned to hear silence. That's the kind of life I lived: simple. I learned to see things in people around me, in my mom, dad, brothers and sisters.
I'd seen my father. He was a poor man, and I watched him do astonishing things.
To be compared to Jackie Robinson is an enormous compliment, but I don't think it's necessarily deserved.
I was the only Black person on the set. It was unusual for me to be in a circumstance in which every move I made was tantamount to representation of 18 million people.
But I always had the ability to say no. That's how I called my own shots.
I never had an occasion to question color, therefore, I only saw myself as what I was... a human being.
