Some people look like they're lost causes, but they're not. Even if they're in a messed up situation, the one little thing you do to help can go a long way.
— Lakeith Stanfield
I grew up very poor in a fractured family that was dysfunctional on both sides, but I sort of put up these reflectors to most of the negative things that have occurred in my life. I don't carry around much baggage.
I love 'Watch the Throne,' because Kanye was acting so ratchet.
I want to be in some Willy Wonka-type weird stuff, a role where I'm an alien. Anything that's new and challenging and real. I like real stuff.
My two little twin brothers have autism, so I grew up around it and misunderstood it for a long time.
Victorville gave me opportunity to go inside and explore my imagination a bit.
You can be the most intelligent person, and you can have so much potential, but if you don't have a guide by which to channel that energy, then a lot of times, it's futile.
I always knew I'd be an actor. I always knew I'd at least be on a big screen somewhere.
Music is something I do full-time in real life. I was doing music long before I was even thinking about acting.
My biggest strength is I'm courageous, or if I am afraid of something, I do it anyway. I do what I feel. It's nothing personal against anyone, so that courageousness has been very good to me.
I'm in this music duo called Moors.
Have you ever heard of 'Guess Who's Coming to Dinner?' I would like to play Sidney Poitier's role - I love that role.
I think prejudice has gotten to a point where a lot of people hold biases in their mind and don't even realize that they're doing it, because it's deeply ingrained in the fabric of what it means to be an American.
That was like my safe place with great teachers where everyone could let down their guard and not feel judged. As soon as we walk outside, it was like, 'Look at these weird drama club kids.' But we all had our own agreement that we were cool in our own way.
Hip-hop is not all '2 Chainz' - although '2 Chainz' is awesome. How he does that with metaphors, I don't know.
Although rap is about boasting, it's also about honesty and expressing your emotions.
I'm a little baby in a barrel just taking everything in. I'm just so fortunate to do whatever I'm doing.
My producer, HH, makes sounds, so I'm writing to his beats.
I write poetry, and I put it to a beat - I mean, that's what they call rap.
For me, life is like an act within itself. Everything I do is an act. Where I'm going is an act.
I wanted to be as genuine as possible because all those people like Jimmie Lee Jackson - me, Mike Brown, all these people - we're all the same; we're not much different.
I've been fortunate to get involved with 'Short Term 12.' I was just a young teenager on the Internet, clicking on anything that had the word 'actor' in it. One day, someone called me in for a movie audition.
I've always been super expressive, and I've always liked to express myself any way I can.
I feel like with every performance that I see, I get better because I've always thought - while I'm watching people perform - of what I would do.
I was born in San Bernardino in summer of '91 and grew up in Riverside, San Bernardino, and Victorville.
It's a hard thing when you've got guns pointed at you, to still stand up for what you believe in. Jimmie Lee and his family did that, and several others.
I was kind of a weird kid in high school. I didn't have many friends in my age group because all they wanted to do was fight and have riots.
I've done music since I would sit and make songs on my computer mic when I was 11.
Just listening and going back and forth and exchanging ideas with people. It's a beautiful thing. This is what's really important.
They say every five years the atoms in your body become a new set of atoms.
My focus is anything that allows me to express myself. Rap, dance, photography. Those are my forms of expression.
I really like watching myself a lot because it gives me an opportunity to see it from outside the flesh, and when I view it like that, I can be a lot more cynical and see the things that need to be attacked.
When I was little, when I was a toddler or something, I would watch 'Jason's Lyrica' lot.
When you're talking about an authority figure oppressing against people, it's the people that hold that authority figure up. If you want to get free of this bondage, then we need to think about ways to free ourselves rather than looking to the oppressors to free us.
I'm from Victorville - it's about an hour-and-a-half away from Los Angeles, up in the desert. They call it Victimville because it's kind of violent. It's a beautiful place, though. It's quiet.
I'm influenced a lot by my family. I have a big family.
We used to do sock puppet shows for my auntie back in the day. Me and my friends would do accents of Englishmen, and we would sip tea and act like we were rich in front of the family, and they thought it was just hilarious, the level of perception that we had about things that we'd never experienced.
The prison industrial system, things like that are cleverly put in place to attempt to marginalize a certain group of people - and it's not only black, it's replete across the American society.
It's been constant grinding and trying to secure work that I care about, tireless auditions and meetings. I've been fortunate that a lot of cool doors have opened to me, chiefly meeting great people who were inspired by what I've done and what they feel I could bring to their projects.
