Imagine you wake up one morning with a knock at the door, and when you answer, there's Denzel Washington announcing that he's going to be filming on your street for several weeks.
We try to do that for stories - we try to say, 'OK, here's the message, here's the theme, here's the good people and the bad.' Life is not nearly like that.
To be a member of something. To be a member of something helps get rid of that lonely feeling.
I always say you don't want to get it right, you want to get it true.
Don't listen to some outside interpretation - do the scene as it makes sense to you and the other actor.
Once you start to play together, vibing off each other in the scene, it's not just the notes - it's the music. The script might be the notes playing, but we're making it music.
Sometimes a mentor has to be reminded of the principles he has tried to instill in others.
I had the great fortune to work with John Houseman at Juilliard.
It's wonderful to see someone you love get what they wanted.
Blues is life, you know? An appreciation for the depth of life and the fact that hard times strengthen you and make you ready - blues, a lot of times, is about the loss of love.
We had two terms of Barack Obama. Unfortunately, we have these people that are afraid, and they always try to roll us back, but they can never roll us back as much as we go forward.
To do it on film, where it'll be seen by more people than have seen the play since it was written, it humbles you.
