“I’ve been known to preach.”

You do it to challenge yourself. You do it because, naturally, in the profession of acting, you want to show growth. You want to say that you take the craft seriously.

My mom was very strict. She didn’t let me watch anything rated R or anything with cussing.

Every relationship should eventually become a long-term relationship. Any director that I meet now isn’t just a director. He’s potentially a friend, and someone I can call to do a project that I want or that I have.

I’ve turned down shows offering large amounts of money.

No man wants to settle down. It happens. Eventually you’re going to bump into somebody that makes you go, ‘Hmm, I don’t mind seeing this person every day.’

I’ve done auditions where the casting director is taking the paper out of my hand in the middle of reading.

I want them to be good people, so good people will treat them accordingly. I preach that to my kids and everything else falls into place.

I love soft-cotton white T-shirts.

If you want to appeal to everyone, you can’t do a world tour and expect black people to show up at every date – when you’re in Australia, when you’re in Dubai, when you’re in Indonesia.

I’m happy about working; I’m happy about gracing the stage and coming out and making people laugh.

I’m not going to stop having problems.

I can honestly say, after talking about my mom passing away, I got the biggest weight off of my chest.

I don’t think you get successful to brag and throw what you have in the world’s face. That’s all private.

I had a great time being a salesman because of the pitches that I gave when I was selling shoes.

Best Man Holiday’ was a very successful film.

There’s no reason why I can’t be a mogul. When I step into a room and I’m there to have a conversation, if it pertains to business,

I collect art, and I drink wine… things that I like that I had never been exposed to. But I never said, ‘I’m going to buy art to impress this crowd.’ That’s just ridiculous to me. I don’t live my life like that, because how could you be happy with yourself?

Semi-colons only prove that the author has been to college.

Elegance and beauty have been banished.

The fact that I’ve been nominated for a BAFTA is insane.

Dad, it’s been an up-and-down road for all of us, but you’ve always been there supporting from afar, texting me Bible verses every single day, telling me you love me every single day. That builds me up and I thank you so much. I love you. I’m just glad you’re part of this journey with us.

It’s been agony but I couldn’t have done it any other way.

In a world where women work three times as hard for half as much, our achievement has been denigrated, both marriage and divorce have turned against us, our motherhood has been used as an obstacle to our success, our passion as a trap.

I like a face that hasn’t been tampered with.