“I have skills like a panther, and I am going to change my destiny with it.”

I don’t have a smart house. My house is very dumb.

Each movie you do about a real person is like a painting, and you choose certain things in the painting that you want to pull out and you want to show.

I’d taken, like, maybe some African dance classes a couple of times, but I wasn’t a musical theater person at all.

I can’t even imagine something being more fun than playing James Brown onstage.

I don’t read reviews, but I do get feedback from my peers and people I know, like other actors and directors and producers.

I think there’s a difference between a working actor, a movie star and a celebrity. They’re all three different things.

Sometimes when you’re acting, you only need a little bit of something to sort of channel or, you know, transport into a place.

As a director, it is important to understand the actor’s process.

I might have had too many friends in my twenties.

I think the most stressful time of my life was when I was in New York, and I didn’t have money to pay my rent.

I would love to play Jimi Hendrix.

In television you don’t have a lot of time to spend with the role or the script. Typically you get a script a week prior to shooting. Sometimes it’s even less time, not enough time to dream about the role.

The industry looks for white actors and actresses, but it’s not the same for black actors. We have to really put the work in.

I wasn’t a comic book geek as a kid. I read some, but it was just like, ‘Oh, I have this comic book here.’ It wasn’t like I was collecting them.

When you’re doing a character, you want to know the full landscape. You want to know them spiritually, mentally and physically.

People have said, ‘You don’t need to do any more biopics. You don’t need to play any more real people.’ I don’t agree with that.